FORT MYERS, Fla. (WINK)\u2014A project intended to help people along Palm Beach Boulevard is taking shape.<\/p>\n
For Sara, riding her bike along Palm Beach Boulevard isn’t a choice. It’s her daily routine, but she says it comes with a constant risk.<\/p>\n
“I do not feel safe most of the time, being that there is not enough openings and crossings for the pedestrians to cross,” Sara said.<\/p>\n
She points to the losses still felt in this community, such as the 14-year-old boy killed here last year.<\/p>\n
“I personally have known about three or four people that have died trying to cross. Yeah, it’s pretty dangerous,” Sara said.<\/p>\n
“I didn’t personally know the child, but I mean, it’s somebody’s child, and it just\u2026 it hurt me,” she said.<\/p>\n
That pain and fear is why many are watching this project closely. Pedestrian hybrid beacons are designed for roads just like this, where traffic is fast and gaps are limited.<\/p>\n
Federal data shows they can reduce pedestrian crashes by 55%. Martinez says he sees that danger play out every day, especially during rush hour.<\/p>\n
“The speed\u2026 it’s like ridiculous. They’re not even looking at the speed limit. It is very dangerous if you go out the road,” Martinez said.<\/p>\n
“There’s a bike posted on the side\u2026 got hit by a car. I think these things would slow the traffic down, and it will also save lives,” he said.<\/p>\n
The Florida Department of Transportation says these six locations were chosen based on where people are already crossing and where crashes have happened.<\/p>\n
“It doesn’t take much to take a life\u2026 just speeding,” Martinez said.<\/p>\n
Five of the six beacons are up, but they are not turned on yet. According to FDOT’s website, construction here is expected to continue through fall 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT MYERS, Fla. (WINK)\u2014A project intended to help people along Palm Beach Boulevard is taking shape. For Sara,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244240,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[107643,209,211,210,28,1126,897,9097,61434,8375],"class_list":["post-244239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-beacon","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-florida","tag-florida-department-of-transportation","tag-fort-myers","tag-palm-beach","tag-pedestrian-crossing","tag-traffic-law"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}