Photo: Allen Eyestone, Palm Beach Post

“Experts have advised city leaders that narrowing U.S. 1 could revive the stretch of highway lined with empty office buildings but those leaders are asking residents what they think before making any decisions.

The debate over the road’s width from the Parker Bridge to the Lake Park border has simmered for years, and each time residents have pushed back. But it resurfaced in October, when experts from a local planning agency said trimming the road from six lanes to four and replacing the languishing offices with townhouses and shops could stop residents from taking their money elsewhere. When shoppers skip town, they take $118 million with them, a Washington, D.C.-based real estate consultant said…

Twelve miles to the north in Tequesta, U.S. 1 is due to shrink to four lanes and get wider sidewalks, decorative lighting and bike lanes on both sides, with much of the money coming from the state.

That will leave North Palm Beach with one of the few six-lane sections of U.S. 1 in Palm Beach County…

The Florida Department of Transportation encourages wider bike lanes and sidewalks as part of its ‘complete streets’ policy. U.S. 1 has only a striped shoulder for bicyclists and five-foot sidewalks on either side…”

–Sarah Peters, Palm Beach Post

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