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So what do you suggest? Take the gates off and start driving through the neighborhoods? Obviously, those neighborhoods were not designed to be "through streets" so getting rid of gated communities won't solve anything. Blame your local city commissioners and politicians who approve of city design and infrastructure. They're the ones to blame here, not the gated communities themselves. They approved and designed the city that way---- surely developers lined their pockets
That's not how that works. DRI and PD legislation has long been written in Tallahassee. Cities and Counties haven't had a choice about how that works until somewhat recently (last 15 years or so) but places that were approved 20 years ago can still be built today based on the old approvals.
How? I am not getting how community with the gate can "funnel" traffic? Most communities are dead end communities so gate or not at the entrance makes ZERO effect on main roads and congestion of these main roads. I also never seen back up of traffic the the gated entrance so it affected traffic on the main road.
They're dead end communities because they're gated. They have to be. That's the problem. You force everyone to use the same arterials for every trip. Most of those roads are only designed to handle 50-60,000 and because no one can take a direct route to get anywhere they may wind up driving 10 miles to get to a place that's only 3 miles away. If everyone does that you've just tripled VMT without increasing the population so, basically, you need triple the lane miles of roadway.
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Again, gated communities are in 99% cases dead ended. Gate or not there is the same number of ways to enter and exist. Nobody feel the restriction of freedom in driving except people who cannot get to gated communities lol
You seem to be thinking about the traffic behind the gates. Not what happens when that traffic enters public roads and the traffic caused by everyone having to take circuitous routes to get around gated enclaves.
I live near downtown Orlando but I work in Osceola County. It takes me 20-30 minutes to go 5 miles in Osceola County regardless of time of day. When I'm home it never takes me more than 15 minutes to go 5 miles and there are very few places that I need to go regularly that take longer than 10 minutes to get to even when the traffic is bad. It's because it's a grid and there are multiple way to get almost everywhere.
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Gated communities are residential communities. These are much safer for residents including children. Many people prefer to drive around which takes longer than live on congested road because people who don't live in community and using your road are almost always speeding and don't care about safety of residents.
I don't know anybody in their right mind wanting to live off congested road with drive thru traffic if there is an option to live in gated community.
This last part is what's called a false dichotomy. Lots of options between the black and white scenario you painted there. If you have evidence that your gated community is safer because it's gated, lots of people would love to see that data. Gates in the absence of 24 hour security don't tend to do much.
That's not how that works. DRI and PD legislation has long been written in Tallahassee. Cities and Counties haven't had a choice about how that works until somewhat recently (last 15 years or so) but places that were approved 20 years ago can still be built today based on the old approvals.
That’s probably what happened in Gainesville. No new gated communities can be built, but existing ones have been grandfathered into the ban. The main reason gated communities were banned was due to “exclusion.”
In Alachua County, new gated communities can still be built. The county commission has generally been more conservative than the city commission.
I lived in a gated community in South Florida and I did feel safe. However, I always felt that if a bad bunch of people wanted to barge in, the security guard at the gate wasn’t going to be able to stop them. They only had basic training, there was lots of turnover, and reliability was a factor. I know people who live in unmanned gated communities, and going through the gate can be a real ordeal if the intercom doesn’t work, or some other type of malfunction. But gated communities are popular in Florida, most definitely.
I really never saw them cause a traffic problem, unless they’re on a popular road and traffic gets backed up going in or out of them,
These people living in these gated communities have adapted to the times. They all mostly work from home, spending more quality time with their family and cooking out with neighbors. This equates to not having to spend as much time driving to work and dealing with road traffic. Sometime you just have to adapt to change to over come a hurdle. Easy peasy.
These people living in these gated communities have adapted to the times. They all mostly work from home, spending more quality time with their family and cooking out with neighbors. This equates to not having to spend as much time driving to work and dealing with road traffic. Sometime you just have to adapt to change to over come a hurdle. Easy peasy.
My observation has been the opposite. Most people I know who live in gated communities (such as, say, Heathrow or Alaqua Lakes just outside of Orlando) drive to work every day. They are the ones clogging up I4.
And it's not just commuting to and from work, it's also taking the kids to and from school, to sports practices, going to the store for various reasons, etc. When there is only one way in and out, and EVERYONE uses the same, one single road due to the dead-end nature of the neighborhood, it creates for an awful traffic mess.
When I lived in Baldwin Park (non-gated, thru traffic, yet just as safe) I would encounter young professionals at all hours of the work day walking or jogging all over the place. I think Drive Carephilly nailed it with this:
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Originally Posted by drive carephilly
They're dead end communities because they're gated. They have to be. That's the problem. You force everyone to use the same arterials for every trip. Most of those roads are only designed to handle 50-60,000 and because no one can take a direct route to get anywhere they may wind up driving 10 miles to get to a place that's only 3 miles away. If everyone does that you've just tripled VMT without increasing the population so, basically, you need triple the lane miles of roadway.
You seem to be thinking about the traffic behind the gates. Not what happens when that traffic enters public roads and the traffic caused by everyone having to take circuitous routes to get around gated enclaves.
I live near downtown Orlando but I work in Osceola County. It takes me 20-30 minutes to go 5 miles in Osceola County regardless of time of day. When I'm home it never takes me more than 15 minutes to go 5 miles and there are very few places that I need to go regularly that take longer than 10 minutes to get to even when the traffic is bad. It's because it's a grid and there are multiple way to get almost everywhere.
That’s probably what happened in Gainesville. No new gated communities can be built, but existing ones have been grandfathered into the ban. The main reason gated communities were banned was due to “exclusion.”
In Alachua County, new gated communities can still be built. The county commission has generally been more conservative than the city commission.
A lot of places have banned them or at least only allow them under certain circumstances like if the property backs up to a big wetland so the road is going to be a dead end anyway - but again even in places that have banned them, if they were approved a long time ago they can still be built as approved.
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I really never saw them cause a traffic problem, unless they’re on a popular road and traffic gets backed up going in or out of them,
Yeah, I think maybe you're just thinking of traffic jams at the gate. That's not what causes the macro, congestion related delays that most people experience when commuting. One lane of expressway can move about 2,200 cars per hour but once you try to squeeze more than 2,300 - 2,400 cars per hour in that space speeds start to decline and the throughput declines rapidly. In other words, roads work really well until you hit their limit and then they fail very quickly.
An arterial highway of the kind that Florida is famous for can move about 1,900 cars per hour of green time but that highway may only have the green for 40 minutes out of every hour so that number is probably more like 1,250 cars per hour per lane. Once you go over that number the road fails very quickly towards gridlock.
For each step down in roadway classification you go the numbers get a little smaller in terms of throughput but - and a big but - in most places there are lot more lane miles of local roads than there are of highways.
The way most people experience "traffic" is as a function of time but the way it's actually measured is as a function of space. That's Vehicle Miles Traveled. The more VMT you have the more roadway you need.
When you take away the local network so that you *only* have the highway network then you're not just forcing everyone to use the same highways and eliminating a whole lot of useful lane miles of roadway, you're also creating VMT.
So, as an example, my preferred method of getting to MCO is to drive straight down Conway Rd. If I wanted to save 3 minutes I could take 408 to 417 to 528 . . . but it's an extra 10 miles. Having gated communities everywhere is like eliminating the Conway Roads, forcing everyone to put in more mileage on the expressways to the point that the expressways are no longer faster because everyone is on them for every trip.
That's the problem in a nutshell.
It doesn't matter what kind of network you have - water, internet, phone, roads - the network is only as strong as the weakest choke point. We have a road network that is primarily choke points with no redundancies.
This may be SHOCKING but The OP makes a very insightful and cogent observation imho. The OP is absolutely correct in the assessment of "funneling of traffic" on to arteries which become nightmares for traffic administration, light timing and a host of other variables. The most graphic example around us is all over the newer planned communities all around Lakewood Ranch esp just each of the boulevard to areas like Lorraine, Rangeland, etc - it's already awful in funneling traffic. Second, gated communities very often offer a very false sense of community and safety, esp those communities with only automatic gates manned only by security idiots like Envera Systems who are remote-working jokes who hire more idiots looking at cameras at the gates. If your sub actually has a manned attendant that's largely better, but no assurance of anything. If a criminal wants in your gated community, I assure you they will get there. ALSO, around here, there are criminals and very very shady people who live in 1MM dollar houses behind said gates. Looking a the sheriff's blotter there are tons of CRIMES already occurring behind lots of gates, e.g. domestics, robberies, assaults, shootings, fraud, online scammers behind their computers, etc etc. In my own area, I am aware of several criminals who also live behind the gate of my own very nice community (so I thought).
My observation has been the opposite. Most people I know who live in gated communities (such as, say, Heathrow or Alaqua Lakes just outside of Orlando) drive to work every day. They are the ones clogging up I4.
And it's not just commuting to and from work, it's also taking the kids to and from school, to sports practices, going to the store for various reasons, etc. When there is only one way in and out, and EVERYONE uses the same, one single road due to the dead-end nature of the neighborhood, it creates for an awful traffic mess.
When I lived in Baldwin Park (non-gated, thru traffic, yet just as safe) I would encounter young professionals at all hours of the work day walking or jogging all over the place. I think Drive Carephilly nailed it with this:
Which is what has happened all along Alafaya Trail and now Narcoossee Road any day of the week at peak driving times. Wall to wall traffic at 10am/11am, Noon, 2pm/3pm, rush hour AM/PM....
This may be SHOCKING but The OP makes a very insightful and cogent observation imho. The OP is absolutely correct in the assessment of "funneling of traffic" on to arteries which become nightmares for traffic administration, light timing and a host of other variables. The most graphic example around us is all over the newer planned communities all around Lakewood Ranch esp just each of the boulevard to areas like Lorraine, Rangeland, etc - it's already awful in funneling traffic. Second, gated communities very often offer a very false sense of community and safety, esp those communities with only automatic gates manned only by security idiots like Envera Systems who are remote-working jokes who hire more idiots looking at cameras at the gates. If your sub actually has a manned attendant that's largely better, but no assurance of anything. If a criminal wants in your gated community, I assure you they will get there. ALSO, around here, there are criminals and very very shady people who live in 1MM dollar houses behind said gates. Looking a the sheriff's blotter there are tons of CRIMES already occurring behind lots of gates, e.g. domestics, robberies, assaults, shootings, fraud, online scammers behind their computers, etc etc. In my own area, I am aware of several criminals who also live behind the gate of my own very nice community (so I thought).
I live in a gated community with a front and back gate. Would be a time saver for those that don't live here to use it as a short cut, but they never will be allowed. The gates, security, and roads are owned by the homeowners. We don't want people driving through the community that don't live here. I'm sure Rambo could wreak havoc on the community if he chose to. But to the average riff raff it's easier to find someplace else.
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