Traffic Roundabouts For Beach and 1st

By Timothy J. Baker

NEW TRAFFIC-CALMING plans for Beach Drive and 1st Street N were approved in principal last month by the NSNA Traffic Committee.

The committee voted its support for ideas developed by the city to add traffic islands and roundabouts along the length of Beach Drive, and on 1st Street N at 22nd and 30th Avenues.

The committee had hoped that a final plan would be ready for a vote by the full NSNA membership in July. However, Ray R. McKenzie, the city's manager of neighborhood transportation, told the committee that the city would not be able to complete its plans until September. He said construction could begin almost immediately after, assuming the neighborhood approves.

The committee will bring the preliminary plans to the July membership meeting for discussion. This will give neighborhood residents the chance to have input before the plan is made final.

Mr. McKenzie met with the committee at the Sunshine Center on June 28, mainly to answer questions about his department's proposals.

Basically, the plan calls for roundabouts along Beach Drive at all the odd-numbered avenues between 7th and 17th. Traffic on either Beach or an intersecting avenue would be required to cede the right of way to any traffic already in the roundabout.

The goal, according to Mr. McKenzie, is to slow traffic and improve safety without reducing the total flow of vehicles.

The roundabouts also have an esthetic element, adding greenery to previously barren swaths of pavement.

On 1st Street N, a roundabout is definitely proposed for 30th Avenue. However, the city wants to do further research before committing to a roundabout at 22nd Avenue. The proposal there would be to replace the existing traffic signal with a roundabout. This would keep traffic moving at all times, while still allowing north-south traffic to safely cross 22nd Avenue.

Traffic planners recently have favored such devices as roundabouts, under the belief that they are more acceptable to the public than stop signs or traffic lights. Public acceptance is needed, the planners argue, if the benefits of traffic calming are to be sustained.

ALSO IN THE WORKS are one or two high-visibility crosswalks. The locations for these have not been decided, although one idea would be to have one on North Shore Drive at about 13th Avenue, and the other on 1st Street N somewhere between 22nd and 30th.

A high-visibility crosswalk can include such things as lights embedded in the pavement, or overhead warning lights activated by a pedestrian.

The new plans would cause the loss of the existing bicycle lane on Beach Drive. The bicycle lane could be shifted to North Shore Drive, but that would cause the loss of some parking there.

It is up to the neighborhood to decide how such details are resolved.

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I Think That I Shall Never Plant ...

By Timothy J. Baker

HOW DIFFICULT CAN it be to plant a tree? Dig a little hole, place the sapling, refill the hole, water for a while, maybe add a little fertilizer. Stand back, and pretty soon you've got a little shade.

Of course, if you're trying to plant your tree in the public right of way along a busy state highway, complications can arise. There's the state government, the city government, the business owners, the power company, the telephone company, the cable company . . . They all like trees, of course, but there are these other concerns ...

Suddenly, this simple idea of planting a tree can look difficult. What kind of tree are you talking about? How large does it grow? Where exactly did you want to put it? Who is supposed to take care of it? Who is supposed to pay for it?

And, of course, we are not really talking about planting one lone little tree, we are talking about planting a lot of trees.

So, planting a tree can be difficult.

Difficult, but possible, as a committee formed to beautify 4th Street N has found.

The ad hoc committee formed more than a year ago, with the goal of improving the landscaping along some or all of 4th Street N. This seemed to be a modest and reachable goal. Plenty of people were interested, including neighborhood residents, business owners and city officials. And, perhaps just as important, nobody was against having more trees and shrubs. At least, nobody said so.

After a few meetings, the committee clarified the scope of its project. Most of the interest involved the stretch of 4th Street between 5th and 30th Avenues N, and that was also the stretch that seemed to need the most help. From 5th to 9th, though, looked too difficult. So, the goal became beautifying the stretch between 9th and 30th.

THE COMMITTEE, CHAIRED by architect Steve Lange and with about a half dozen active members, tried various approaches, especially working with individual business owners, to get something going. All along, though, it seemed as if some involvement on the part of the City of St. Petersburg would be necessary.

The problem was that 4th Street is a state road, and the state has a lot of rules about what can and can't be done in its rights-of-way. One thing you can't do is just dig your little hole and drop in your baby oak tree.

It was assumed that the city would find it easier to deal with the state than would a citizen's committee. And In the end, that's exactly what happened. City planner Jammi Shelton was a committee member from the beginning. She lives in the North Shore neighborhood and takes a special interest in landscaping. Through her, the connection with the city was made.

SEVERAL CITY OFFICIALS, including Ms. Shelton, attended the most recent committee meeting at the Sunshine Center. There, Mr. Lange announced that the city had put $100,000 in its next budget to pay for tree planting in the target area. In addition, the city's Parks Department would draw up a master plan for the work, and they would coordinate with the state to make that plan a reality.

The city's fiscal year begins in October, so the actual planting along 4th Street could happen this fall or winter.

NOW, WHICH SPECIES of tree best suits 4th Street N? The tree's canopy should be large enough to provide shade for pedestrians, but not so large that it covers up business signs and display windows. The bottom of the canopy has to be high enough that it doesn't block the view of motorists. The top of the canopy has to be low enough that it doesn't interfere with utility lines. The tree should be hardy enough that it doesn't need a lot of care. It would be nice if there were flowers to provide a little color. The city requires that any saplings that it plants be at least eight feet high, and with a diameter of three inches at chest height.

So, maybe a large beach umbrella or a giant portabella mushroom would be a better idea?

At last word, the committee was leaning towards a tree called the Cordia Boissieri, which grows to a height of about 30 feet, and has a canopy of the right dimensions. It also flowers and doesn't need much care.

The main trouble with the Cordia is that it has not yet been planted widely in Florida, and so is not readily available at any area nurseries.

Meanwhile, work on the master plan goes forward. Planners promise that they will consult with property owners before placing any trees. And, other city officials are looking further into the future, hoping that state grants might be available to add even more landscaping, or perhaps to add landscaped traffic islands in the center of the street. Talk about difficult ...

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Historic District Takes the Cake

By Timothy J. Baker

IN RE: THE PROPOSED North Shore Historic District:

At the NSNA general meeting in June, the slides were shown, the speeches were made, the congratulations were voiced, and the cake was cut. (Yes, there was a cake, and it was in the shape of the neighborhood, with the major streets and avenues laid out in icing. Tampa Bay was in blue icing, and Sunken Gardens in green.)

Near the end of it all, NSNA president Rob Wertz presented to Mayor David J. Fischer the actual application to create a National Historic District, covering almost the entire area from 5th to 30th Avenues N, between Tampa Bay and 4th Street. The application is thick as a book and contains a mass of historic and current information about the North Shore neighborhood.

(Truth be known, the application wasn't quite finished when the Mayor got it. It still needed some polishing and final editing, so the Historic District Committee had to get its application back and do a bit more work. By the time you're reading this, though, even that should be done.)

So now what?

The whole thing is in the hands of the bureaucracy. A couple of bureaucracies, actually. And it will take time, perhaps as much as a year, before the historic district can become a reality.

First, the application will be analyzed by the Planning Department staff at City Hall. Any changes or improvements that they want will be made, and then, along with the staff recommendation, the application will be sent to the city's Historic Preservation Commission for a hearing and a vote.

ONCE THE CITY is happy with the application, the application goes to Tallahassee, where it must undergo similar scrutiny by the State Historic Preservation Office. The state also must hold an official public hearing on the application in St. Petersburg.

At the end of this process, the state will act on behalf of the U.S. Department of the Interior, which administers the National Register of Historic Places.

So what exactly is in this application?

The biggest part of it is taken up by a listing of some 1,800 homes in the neighborhood, with each entry giving the address of the home, the style of the home's architecture, when it was built, its current use (single-family, duplex or apartments), and how many outbuildings are on the property.

These 1,800 homes are listed because they are deemed to be buildings that would contribute to the historic district, and so would be eligible for property-tax breaks for historic renovations. The application includes an additional listing of some 450 homes that are not considered to be contributing structures.

Similar information is shown graphically on a large map of the neighborhood, which shows the footprint of every building and outbuilding, and is color coded to distinguish contributing and non-contributing buildings.

APART FROM THESE listings, there is a narrative history of the neighborhood, which contains information about the growth of the area and about significant dates and events.

Another major element is photographic. Dozens of photos were taken throughout the neighborhood, aimed at showing examples of the architectural styles that characterize the North Shore.

There is also a statistical element, which shows the years in which most of the neighborhood's homes were built, and also ranks the relative abundance of architectural styles.

The cumulative effect of all this is to demonstrate the historical significance of the North Shore, as a largely intact model of residential development in Florida during its boom years between the turn of the century and World War II.

This was not an easy job. Consider this: the instructions for filling out the application are themselves contained in a book that is 82 pages long, plus has ten appendices.

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