Jessica Conway frequently walks along Southwest 20th Avenue to get to a nearby store and doctor’s office. She said she has been almost hit by a car several times.
Along the half-mile corridor that crosses over I-75 in Southwest Gainesville, low visibility, a lack of sidewalks and unseparated bike lanes pose serious threats to pedestrians who must travel side by side with traffic, according to many people who must go back and forth there daily.
According to Alachua County statistics, the Southwest 20th Avenue corridor has had 217 crashes – including 94 injury crashes, 4 serious injury crashes, and one fatality – over the last five years.
The corridor stretches along an area that includes multi-family housing and bus stops and ranks high on pedestrian and bicycle high injury networks, a term transportation officials use to identify areas with a higher number of casualties.
“I pray for anybody that’s been hurt out here,” said Conway, 38, who is unemployed and lives in the apartment complexes near the bridge of I-75. “There should be more room for pedestrians and people to keep their kids safe walking up and down the roads.”
Earlier this month, the federal government awarded Alachua County $1.4 million dollars to help improve pedestrian and traffic safety along the corridor.
The “Paths to Opportunity” project is expected to address the three elements listed by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Roadway Safety Plan: safer people, safer roads and safer speeds. With construction set to begin in 2027, it will fund creating separated bicycle lanes, crosswalks, wide sidewalks and additional motor vehicle lanes, according to the county.
In recent years, Gainesville has undertaken numerous projects to improve pedestrian safety elsewhere in the city. In 2023, for example, the city accepted $8 million dollars from USDOT to improve safety along University Avenue. Additionally, the county’s Vision Zero Action Plan sought to address safety issues for road users in East Gainesville.
For Southwest Gainesville, however, developments have remained minimal.
Crashes at the intersection of Southwest 20th Avenue and Southwest 62nd Boulevard have been disproportionately severe, comprising 59 percent of all crashes, and 64 percent of injury crashes, according to the grant application. As with the corridor as a whole, rear-end and left-turn crashes made up most of injury crashes at the intersection (40 and 24 percent, respectively).
The lack of transportation pathways disconnects the area from jobs, schools, healthcare, grocery stores, parks and places of worship, according to the county’s merit criteria for the grant funding.
By increasing affordable transportation options, the county also wants to promote social equity in the historically disadvantaged communities near the Southwest 20th Avenue corridor.
“If you do not have basic safe accommodations for people who are dependent on walking, biking and taking transit, you are absolutely looking at an inequitable roadway,” said Alachua County Transportation Planning Manager Allison Moss. “I mean, it is not just inconvenient; it threatens people’s lives. That is inequitable.”
Until construction begins, Conway urged motorists to be careful when crossing the corridor.
“For people that are driving, watch out for babies, people on bikes and people walking the street – and protect the young ones, so they know they are worth it, no matter what around here,” she said.