According to Wellington officials, there is no particular timetable to reopen the closed, unpaved portion of Flying Cow Ranch Road, following complaints that dump trucks and others blazed a noisy, dusty bypass route along the village’s bucolic southwestern edge.
Signs, flags and physical barriers clearly mark the end of the road in its rutted, axle-rattling nether regions, not far from where its pavement runs out some four miles south of Southern Blvd. and just south of the Wellington Environmental Preserve.
“The road was not originally designed to handle the volume of traffic it is currently experiencing and has become a safety issue due to the excessive dust impairing visibility, and the general road conditions,” Wellington spokeswoman Liz Nunez said in a statement.
The statement did not address questions about whether the village intends to pave the full road or otherwise improve it, or simply leave it closed indefinitely.
“We do not have a scheduled reopening date at this time,” the statement continued. “Alternate routes will need to be utilized for the duration of the road closure. We apologize for any inconvenience this may be causing.”
The move cut off an end run around the village’s more congested central arteries by severing a connection with Indian Mound Road and 50th Street South.
Wellington officials are considering a wide menu of road improvements, including recommendations from a project called Vision Zero, designed to boost traffic safety by 2030.
The Flying Cow moniker honors a foundational namesake figure of what would become the village, landowner Charles Oliver Wellington. His initials spell out the farm animal, and he was an avid aviator, launching a theme reflected in ranch, plane and place names.
Residential concerns of the southwestern Wellington shortcut have been aired for years.
One online petition called for restricting trucks to within 2.5 miles of Southern Blvd. and reducing speed limits from 55 mph on the upper portion of the road to discourage racing and speeding, with some online suggesting that, “Flying Cow Road has turned into I-95, especially during season.”
