Palm Beach County transportation: Now's time to weigh west-east options for future commute

The most vital artery pulsing into West Palm Beach, Okeechobee Boulevard, serves many interests.

It collects north-south commuters from Florida's Turnpike and Interstate 95 and carries residents from the western suburbs to downtown West Palm Beach offices, restaurants, shops and entertainment venues and the waterfront. And it feeds customers to shopping centers, car dealerships and other commercial outlets throughout most of its length.

So, as the downtown business center attracts corporate growth and homebuilding sprawls farther west to house their employees and execs — and as the county grows in every way — Okeechobee Boulevard feels the stress. So, now's the time — and not 10 years from now — when our leaders need to act with urgency to rethink our transportation options. That's especially true because any plans they settle on will take years to implement.

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The county Transportation Planning Agency put out word last week that it is studying the corridor and will seek public input on how to make the boulevard more efficient for motor vehicles and safer for bicyclists and pedestrians.

West Palm Beach has conducted its own mobility studies in recent years and has begun work to make getting around the downtown more pleasant, particularly for pedestrians, by de-emphasizing vehicular travel, and, in some ways, creating disincentives to it. Meanwhile, Brightline, Tri-Rail and the Transit-Oriented Village project also promise alternatives to crowding roads with cars.

The boulevard is the big picture, though, as far as the east-west travel that is the bane of most South Florida metropolitan areas. As The Palm Beach Post's Hannah Morse reported this week, Okeechobee sees as many as 77,000 cars a day and the census tracts that touch it have increased in population by more than 20 percent in a decade, to 103,000 people. Rush hours aren't pretty now, and they're not going to fix themselves.

Planners see a number of options: None are perfect, all are expensive but some have more promise than others.

The standard solution would be to load up the boulevard with overpasses, like Southern Boulevard. The Planning Agency's executive director, Nick Uhren, calls that the "car-extreme" approach. The county's comprehensive plan, which dates back several years, called for overpasses where Okeechobee meets State Road 7, Jog Road, Military Trail and Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard.

MORE: Palm Beach County 2030: What’s the plan for road congestion?

This plan prioritizes speedy car travel, at the expense of businesses and residents along the corridor. Southern Boulevard has a canal running along much of its southern side, so overpasses on Okeechobee, which has a full complement of businesses on both sides of the street, would block off roughly twice as much commercial property from easy customer access.

An alternative would be to tunnel under the boulevard. Elon Musk's The Boring Company is pioneering ways to do that, even in environments with near-surface water tables, as we have.

Driverless vehicles and driverless vehicle services also could provide an alternative, by allowing more cars to pack together more closely on the existing roadway. That might work, but it might also lead to more cars on the road, negating any benefit. And it's hard to predict when that complex technology might be ready.

A light-rail system, running down the middle of the boulevard, would provide advantages over overpasses, tunnels or driverless cars. It would disrupt car traffic but move more people than cars or buses could, and could run as frequently as every six to 10 minutes. How to get people to and from that rail system from their homes or offices presents another challenge.

As we reported earlier this year, the transit planners are proposing that when the penny sales tax approved for infrastructure projects sunsets in 2026, it can be replaced with a transportation surtax. One penny out of the seven taken for sales tax in the county could be dedicated to major projects such as a north-south commuter rail, east-west light rail, improved bus service and roadway improvements. 

The pandemic has taken commuters off the roads for now and has given many a taste for remote working, perhaps for the long term. But if there's one thing we can bet on in South Florida, it's growth. We should do everything we can to get the money, plans and facilities in place before commuters' suffering becomes unbearable.

 Anyone who wants to learn more about the transportation agency's Okeechobee Boulevard study, attend a virtual workshop or provide input can visit www.tpaokeestudyworkshops.org or call 561-725-0800.