Corrine Drive is becoming the issue du jour for urban design fans, Audubon Park residents and the City. For years a group called the Corrine Calming Coalition (Facebook | Website) has been lobbying the City to redraw the road by removing lanes and favoring pedestrians over cars.

cross section existing
Graphic courtesy of Corrine Calming Coalition

The road is sitting on top of a mountain of an aging haystack of electric and water pipework in need of serious updating. The City and County have been avoiding construction on the road for years, as the price tag to replace the existing infrastructure will undoubtedly be steep.

The Coalition had an asphalt assessment of Corrine from General Reese to North Bumby and found that it was five years overdue for repaving with a Pavement Condition Index (PCI) of 43 (That’s poor to very poor condition). According to the study, the longer the delays on the repair work, the more expensive the cost, which could mean an increase of $130,000 for each year it’s delayed.

Corrine Drive is a county road, and was originally constructed to service heavy equipment on the way to the Naval Training Center from 17-92. It was built before the area was even part of Orlando. The City told Bungalower this past week that it is working with the County to transfer ownership of the road away from the County to improve its overall features from the ground up, and improve the safety of commuters and nearby residents.

According to the City, there have been 82 crashes along Corrine since 2012, involving over 153 vehicles, resulting in injuries to 26 people and two fatalities.

crash history corrine
Map courtesy of the City of Orlando

Yet according to the Corrine Calming Coalition, when the City put in traffic islands back in the ’80s, with the County’s blessing, they agreed to be responsible for the ongoing maintenance the road. The recent resurfacing of the “s-corner” of Corrine/Virginia leading to Audubon Park was in response to concerns voiced by City residents regarding the safety of the overall road conditions, and has reaffirmed the City’s responsibility to keeping that corridor updated and safe.

According to City spokeswoman, Cassandra Lafser, the City is supportive of complete street efforts (Edgewater Drive was recently hailed as a national model of complete street efforts) and is considering applying to a grant to explore the effects of such an initiative on Corrine Drive. The grant would allow the City to bring in a Complete Street expert to create a demonstration project that would look at temporary changes to the streetscape along the corridor.

The City Planning department created a very informal mock-up of what a complete street would look like in Audubon Park to start the discussion, years ago. The following graphic is not a design document or an official plan.

CorrinePoster-page-001
Courtesy of the City of Orlando

The next step for the City are to get input from the community, conduct a planning study of the corridor, and speak with nearby business and residents.

The following is a draft of what the Coalition would like to see happen along Corrine.

issues
Graphic courtesy of Corrine Calming Coalition

Brendan O'Connor

Editor in Chief of Bungalower.com

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13 Comments

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  1. Is there a link to a more legible version of the mock-up from the City Planning Department? It looks great but nearly impossible to read in the image format posted here.

  2. I grew up on this road back in the 80’s . And all i got to say is it was MUCH calmer back in the days of the NTC. Now that the NTC is a community instead of a base everything has went downhill. Roads are a mess with heavy traffic and It needs some heavy maintenance. The light on Bumby and Corrine needs to be a roundabout instead of a light that changes every 5 seconds. Time to start doing something about it . they are working on Bumby ave. between Corrine and Colonial for the next two year. after that is complete a plan should be in place to correct Corrine Drive and started on immediately.

  3. Having bike-lanes here would be fantastic!! I live only a few minutes away, and frequent the restaurants and shops in Audubon / Corinne Drive … Every time I take by bike (with my toddler on back) I end up having to get off and walk in the street at points … So discouraging.

  4. Well, it’s not the proper use, no. You should contact the OPD’s non emergency number so they know its an issue.

  5. After the improvements on Edgewater, the street carries the same amount of traffic as before, but there are less speeders, more pedestrians, more bikes, and less accidents. It does all of this with minimal delay.
    Corrine is indeed a cut through. I live in Audubon park, and see this every day. Traffic goes between winter park and downtown, using Winter Park Road and Corrine. They FLY down Corrine, ignoring the speed limit and often the school zone.
    Want to bike down Corrine? Well, forget it. It’s like being immersed in a game of Frogger.
    Corrine has about the same amount of daily traffic as Edgewater, albeit a bit more concentrated in the morning and afternoon. Edgewater has been a success, and our neighborhood deserves a complete street as well.
    I agree that sometimes you sit through several light changes at Bumby and Corrine. This always appears to be due to some timing hiccup with the light, and is in no way related to the traffic or capacity on Corrine. As soon as you get through the light, it is clear sailing all the way to Baldwin Park.
    C3 (Corrine Calming Coalition) had a traffic engineer look at how long of a delay should be expected, if the road was put in a diet. The delay, I believe, was well under minute for the entire length of the corridor.
    I, for one, am perfectly willing to give up a few seconds from my day to be able to have the center of my neighborhood be safer and nicer. As a matter of fact, I welcome it.

  6. As a former resident and current business owner in the Edgewater/College Park area, I can attest to a few things about the Edgewater changes. Business benefitted most from this change. Traffic has suffered the most from this change. Drivers still attempt to utilize Edgewater Dr. to avoid I-4 during high traffic hours which then affects businesses negatively. Corrine Drive is not a cut through for anyone, but traffic will be slowed down measurably and everyone should consider this highly as we already experience major slowdowns in the morning and afternoon. It is sometimes necessary to sit through 5 light changes at the Bumby St. intersection in the afternoon (when Bumby is open of course). All in all, there will still be accidents and probably less damaging accidents, but the loss of lanes will negatively affect everyone in the area. Just a consideration.
    Thanks
    Mike