As Pensacola Beach gears up for the tens of thousands of visitors expected to crowd the island for the Blue Angels Beach Show, Escambia County is looking to hire a civil engineer to study how to improve traffic flow on Pensacola Beach and include the possibility of building a parking garage at Casino Beach.
Commissioners are being asked to approve a $604,249 contract with Mott MacDonald to provide design concepts to improve traffic flow onto and off of Pensacola Beach, and for potential solutions to increase parking capacity at Casino Beach.
Escambia District 4 Commissioner Ashlee Hofberger, who represents Pensacola Beach, says the goal is to improve traffic flow for normal seasonal activities and during major events like the Blue Angels air show, Bands on the Beach, or weather-related incidents involving a mass exodus from the island.
She said the engineer will also be tasked with considering what it would take to add new parking at Casino Beach, which serves the businesses in the main tourist area of Pensacola Beach.
“It is essentially laying the foundation to create a plan for beach congestion management,” Hofberger said. “So how do we separate the humans from the cars? What is the best way to get cars on and off the beach? And when we do have to ‘flush’ the beach, whether it’s due to weather or after Blue Angels, what options are there to do it more efficiently?”
Hofberger recently held a town hall meeting about traffic on Pensacola Beach.
Traffic engineers demonstrated how they’re using state-of-the art technology to adjust the timing of traffic lights to prevent and address traffic jams.
However, Hofberger says timing the signals can only do so much with the growing number of tourists, especially with only one major signalized intersection.
The county wants the engineer hired for this project to provide conceptual solutions with sketches and layouts to be evaluated, then they’ll focus on developing a preferred single option to address road and intersection modifications, access and pedestrian crossing improvements – including a possible flyover – as well as probable construction costs.
For the proposed future parking garage, the engineer is not being asked to provide a design, but conceptual floor plans showing parking layouts, a narrative with recommendations, and diagrams showing how people and traffic would move in and out of the area.
“I feel like the Casino Beach parking lot is very confusing being one way,” said Hofberger. “You have a lot of people who live there, and they want to head toward Navarre Portofino or Park East and it just all has to go through that red light versus emptying out. So how do we accommodate a parking structure and effectively get people in and out of that parking structure as well?”
Hofberger said there is no timeline for the engineer to finish the project, but she is looking forward to the recommendations and hopes to move forward on any proposed traffic improvements in phases.
The board is expected to vote on the proposed contract with Mott MacDonald at its next meeting at 5:30 p.m. on July 10 at 221 Palafox Place.
Hofberger said for those wanting to see live camera views of the traffic on Pensacola Beach for the upcoming Blue Angels air show, they can visit myescambia.com where there will be links at the top of the website to live traffic cams of the area.
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Parking garage, pedestrian flyover among traffic improvements proposed for Pensacola Beach
Reporting by Mollye Barrows, Pensacola News Journal / Pensacola News Journal
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