I think this is far from being a done deal. I am thinking it will not happen. It will come up again after there is a seriuos accident and the lawyers start looking for the deep pockets.

I just want to make a comment about headlights on the carts. If you've been paying attention when on the Multi-Modal paths, the are NOT straight! They are gently curving and have undulations. If you are in a low spot it would be very easy for oncoming headlights to be directly in your eyes. Miss aligned headlights is just not a valid argument.

If you buy into the $1 per household justification argument, there are not 392,000 homes here. The cost initially of up to 400K will come from amenity fees. Not an insignificant sum from a fund that is meant to maintain our amenities, not to finance expenditures based on a few supervisors whims and ideas as to what's best for the rest of us.
And the facts show 3 accidents per year after 7 pm for the last 4 years. Hardly an alarming number. What I find alarming is the elected supervisors in various districts trying to spend our amenity fee funds on anything other than for what they were intended.

Is this really true? Just askin.

The paths are fine, leave them alone.

Bingo!

The question that needs to be asked has to do with accidents i.e. will spending the $300,000+ on striping reduce accidents. The data from the engineering study says no.

Amen.

I can't find the link to the study results. Do you still have it?

Let's do the math. The cost of thermoplastic striping is approximately $300,000. I'll give you a $100,000 for additional startup cost. The total cost would be $400,000. The striping will last 5 to 7 years. We will use 5 years to make things simple. The cost per year spreadout over the 5 years is $80,000 per year.

With 100,000 residents, this becomes 80 cents per person per year. You can't buy a cup of coffee for 80 cents, but you can make the multi modal paths a whole lot safer.

Bad idea, no data, no science, let's do it.

ask the families of the fatal cart accidents....and all the others who have had accidents largely unreported in the daily sun, that's all.

We do NOT need to add stripes. They will not reduce accidents which are largely caused by impairment, either chemical or physical. If you shouldn't drive a car on the streets, you don't belong on the pathway in a golf cart either. Give it up and wait for daylight.

[QUOTE=Mleeja;1089263]
With 100,000 residents, this becomes 80 cents per person per year. You can't buy a cup of coffee for 80 cents, but you can make the multi modal paths a whole lot safer.[/QUOTE]

It has yet to be proven that striping would make the MM paths a whole lot safer. I think that is the dilemma, not the cost.

Hearsay. If there was a fatal accident, it would have been reported, and would have been taken into account in the engineering study. And supposing there had been one fatal accident, doesn't mean it was related to poor visibility. Suppose someone had took much to drink, tripped getting into their golf cart, fell off their golf cart and suffered a fatal head injury. Oh, and this happened at night. Would striping have prevented that accident? Of course not. You always need to look at each accident, take into account the circumstances, and then determine cause and effect, and possible mitigation. There probably are accidents that occur that are not reported, but we can't spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on something that may or may not have happened without clearly identifying the cause of such accidents. Good engineering is made on actual data, not guesses.

On another note, people don't seem to realize that thermoplastic is an expensive proposition to install and maintain. And it can be a maintenance headache. The roadway surface has to be extremely dry before you put it down, otherwise it won't adhere well to the roadway surface. There are very exacting temperature and depth requirements regarding its application which affect durability and effectiveness of reflectivity. Given the humidity and rains we get here in Florida, and some of the construction practices I've seen here, I'm not confident that the contractors would get a good application down, and the lifespan will end up being shorter than the optimal one they are quoting us. It will look nice for a few years, but then it fades, starts coming up in small pieces, and frankly looks crummy. When they go to replace it, they'll probably go over the top of the previous lines. The lines won't line up exactly, so it will look worse the second time around. Additionally, when the put it down, it won't be right at the edge of pavement, it will be inset some which will decrease the width of the travel lane.

As a retired engineer, I think think the commissioners should heed the engineering report and vote against side striping at this time. A concerted effort should be made to keep track of all accidents on recreational trails, and keep those statistics for future reference. If, a few years down the road, it is found that the accident history justifies some sort of markings, install them at that time. At this point in time, the accident history does NOT justify pavement markings, certainly not thermoplastic.

Bowling Alley bumpers are the answer.