The current speed limit on Beach Street in downtown Daytona Beach is 30 miles per hour, which is a TERRIBLE speed for a pedestrian-friendly downtown.
Both Sanford, FL and Deland, FL have speed limits of 15 miles per hour in the urban core areas.
If Daytona Beach made Beach Street (just the downtown 3 blocks) 15 miles per hour, I think more people would use the crosswalks (which many motorists don’t appear to even notice) and more motorists might even look up from their phones and notice the revitalizing downtown.
Today, a water pipe broke and flooded a crosswalk. No one even cared. I called the police to report it, but most motorists just drove through without even flinching.
You can’t have a safe area without addressing this issue.
We need either slower speeds along the 3 blocks of Beach Street (from Bay Ave to Orange Ave) or to install STOP signs at all cross walks.
Beach Street is not a highway. Cars today don’t even stop for other vehicles pulling out of parking spaces, let alone pedestrians. It’s very dangerous and does nothing to improve the downtown.
Also, in recent months, we have doubled our police presence to 2 police officers to cover the 3 blocks of downtown. There is no reason, these officers can’t enforce traffic rules by actually writing tickets to speeders and those who don’t stop for pedestrians. Low hanging fruit, yes, but allowing fast driving and no stopping for cars or pedestrians is not helping Beach Street become a walkable, shopping/dining/entertainment area (which I think is our goal).