Denning Drive Road Diet Concept Plans Overview
Winter Park, FL
GAI’s Community Solutions Group (CSG) was tasked by the City of Winter Park, Florida, to develop several streetscape concepts for a 1-mile segment of Denning Drive, featuring a transformative “road diet.” The diet required that the number of lanes on Denning Drive be reduced from four (two in each direction) to three (one in each direction with a center turn lane). The City also desired the incorporation of dedicated bike facilities as part of the streetscape design.
CSG designers faced many challenges tackling the proposed road diet. Denning Drive has numerous driveway cuts, making left turns difficult to accommodate in a consistent section. It is also a major bus route, so the design had to feature turnouts for the bus stops. Also, there is less than 60 feet of right-of-way over most of its length. Finally, the City’s limited construction budget meant that the curb on only one side of the road could be moved to achieve the road diet.
CSG developed several typical sections for potential road diet scenarios that were considered by the City. After picking the desired typical section, CSG developed a plan for the entire Denning corridor. The final design featured a three-lane section, a center turn lane/planted median, a multi-use trail on the east side for bikes and pedestrians, intersection and crosswalk improvements, mid-block crossings, and street trees. This design achieved all of the City’s multimodal goals, while solving the multiple constraints presented by the existing road conditions.
The City of Winter Park self-implemented the project, based on GAI’s detailed schematic design drawings, and completed the work in 2020.