The Loxahatchee Groves Town Council on Tuesday, Oct. 5 approved the continuation of an agreement with Hardrives Inc. for $447,267 to pave F Road from north of Collecting Canal to North Road, including 40 feet east and west on Collecting Canal Road.
Councilwoman Phillis Maniglia, who pulled the item from the consent agenda for discussion, said she did not want to talk about a specific road, but about road striping.
“I had mentioned at the last meeting, can we do an 18-foot standard for the town?” she said, as opposed to 20 feet. “Can we just make the town standard 18 feet with one stripe?”
Maniglia felt that using a single stripe would save the town a lot of money.
Mayor Robert Shorr said that the Florida Department of Transportation standard calls for double striping, but Maniglia replied that the town roads are not FDOT standard roads.
Shorr said that if the road is 18 feet, it would use FDOT standard striping. “That’s what the contractor is doing,” he said.
Maniglia said that the roads in the Deer Run neighborhood are single striped. “It seems sufficient, and one stripe is a no passing, and I think we are paying something like $15,000 or $30,000 a stripe, depending on the length of the road.”
Shorr said he did not like spending the extra money, but he felt the double striping was safer.
Vice Mayor Laura Danowski said she would want to see a cost breakdown of single versus double striping.
“Like in this Hardrives quote, it says install 12 new speed humps, striping double yellow, two edge lines and seven stop bars, $73,000,” Danowski said.
Danowski added that she did not know if the town could declare 18 feet as its standard because the drivable surface of some roads is not 18 feet.
Councilwoman Marge Herzog asked if the double striping protects from people trying to pass, and Maniglia said a single stripe would indicate no passing as well.
Danowski said she did not feel that the council could decide on a standard that evening, pointing out that the town attorney has been studying the roads and found no standard. “I’m not trying to shoot down the idea, but we have no consistency,” she said.
Maniglia asked if town staff could bring back a report for the main connector roads.
“If the standard is 18 feet, could we go one stripe, and if you have the 20 feet, you could go the two stripes?” she asked. “This way, you’re not narrowing your lanes.”
Shorr noted that some of the roads have varying widths, such as B Road North, where it narrows from 20 feet on the south end to 18 feet farther north. “Is that a no-no in the road world to transition from two lines to one line on the same road?” he asked, noting other roads with a similar issue.
Maniglia said a “road narrows” sign could be added at that point.
“That may be a positive, but I don’t know how the road gods view doing that,” Shorr said.
Danowski made a motion to approve the $447,267 contract with Hardrives for the paving of F Road, which carried 4-0 with Councilwoman Marianne Miles absent.
Maniglia asked if she could get the information she had asked for about striping.
“I don’t want to hold up the repair of the OGEM,” Maniglia said.
Shorr said F Road would not present a question because its width is 20 feet all the way.
“I think B Road North is next, so I think that would be the one where we try to cross this hurdle,” he said.
Town Manager Jamie Titcomb said that an analysis could be done on upcoming road projects where they make sure they have the footprint or not.
“You decided North C Road, for example, would go to the 18-foot footprint because of a utility pole interference,” Titcomb said. “Had we had this discussion back then, you might have opted for a single stripe.”
The F Road approval is part of a resolution passed in February authorizing the use of several vendors for paving and resurfacing. Hardrives was selected to repair and overlay multiple OGEM roads, including A Road North, C Road North and South, and D Road North and South, based on council direction to continue the OGEM repair and overlay program.
