Walk this way: Audubon Park to get long awaited crosswalk near East End Market

ORLANDO, Fla. — By the end of the year, people looking to wash down a Kelly’s Homemade Ice Cream cone with a Gideon’s Bakehouse cookie won’t have to dodge traffic to do so.

After more than a decade of discussion pushing for better pedestrian connectivity along Corrine Drive, hope is on the horizon in the form of a crosswalk.

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Jennifer Marvel, executive director of the Audubon Park Garden District, said a new crosswalk near East End Market will provide a safer way for people to get from one side of the district to another.

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“A street needs to be designed for how people live their lives and there shouldn’t be an expectation that people will walk out of their way in the heat and the rain when the crosswalk is two blocks away,” Marvel said.

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As it is now, she said, people are choosing to dodge traffic to cross the road instead of using the nearest crosswalk at Winter Park Road.

She said the district’s been lobbying for better accessibility in the area for at least 11 years, and made a concentrated push to lobby for a crosswalk near East End Market since it opened in 2013.

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“It’s a natural place for people to cross the street,” she said.

Marvel said the crosswalk, which was part of MetroPlan Orlando’s “Corrine Drive Complete Streets” study, will have buttons for people to press that will trigger a red light to stop traffic.

The layout will look familiar to anyone who’s used the crosswalk to get from downtown Winter Park to Rollins College across Fairbanks Avenue or from one side of Bennett Road to the other at the Cady Way Trail near Baldwin Park.

Marvel said the crosswalk will be installed and maintained by the city of Orlando, but that the Audubon Park Garden District will work to jazz it up with native plants and art, in a similar vein to the swan-patterned crosswalk in Thornton Park.

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Marvel said design work for the crosswalk is underway now by Metric Engineering, with construction slated to start late fall of this year, with completion by the end of the year.

The city of Orlando said the crosswalk is still under design, so they don’t have a cost estimate or specific timeline for construction yet.

The Audubon Park Garden District is hosting a workshop to discuss the crosswalk’s design on May 6 at 6 p.m. at Redlight Redlight. Click here for more information.