ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. – From flooded streets to parking availability, the city of St. Augustine hopes to make residents and visitors more aware of what’s happening with the ‘SMART St. Augustine Project.’
Reuben Franklin, Assistant City Manager for the city, said the project will help with public messaging.
“It’s putting information in our public’s hands so they can make better decisions, and it’s just another way of communicating with the public,” Franklin said. “To push out messages and information that they can use to make their lives a little easier.”
People got the chance to learn about the project during a presentation Tuesday. Franklin says part of the ‘SMART Project’ includes alerting people about flooded roads.
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“Flooding sensors are part of the project,” Franklin said. “And so what we intend to do when we go into construction is install these flooding sensors so then we can find out where roads are flooding in real-time, and then push that message out to the public.”
The city is also looking to increase the number of electric vehicle charging stations they have throughout the city as part of this project.
Additionally, they’ll install infrastructure to let people know where parking is available, to help cut down on the traffic that’s caused by people looking for parking.
“When visitors are coming when our parking garage fills up, we can push them to our satellite parking areas or to a future new garage that we have. But it also will help our residents and businesses downtown for workforce parking as well,” Franklin explained.
Robert Bennett attended the informational presentation. He’s a national consultant from Atlanta, Georgia, that oversees infrastructure projects. He said information systems like the one St. Augustine is trying to build are part of the future.
“Intelligence is how you guide people through places and storms and things of that sort. So if you got these systems, you can tell them exactly what’s taking place,” Bennet said. “It’s a warning system.”
Michael Matzen works as a project administrator for HNTB, a company that helps build traffic infrastructure. He also attended the presentation to learn more about the ‘SMART project.’ He feels it will help add an element of safety.
“It looks like they’re going to add a form of ATMS, which is adaptive traffic, that will monitor traffic as it moves and just help keep those roadways clear,” Matzen said. “Which is really going to be huge benefit, especially in situations like we just recently had with Milton, hurricanes, any kind of adverse weather events or emergency situations.”
Chris Milnes lives in St. Augustine and works for Verizon. He feels the project is a good step to advancing the city.
“The congestion is a major factor everywhere,” Milnes said. “So knowing the routes, knowing the signs, knowing if there’s a flooded area, roads closed or construction and they can reroute you. I think this is a good solution for that.”
For Matzen, the future of St. Augustine is something to look forward to.
“It’s going to be an exciting improvement for St. Augustine, and I do think the community is really going to see an impact, a positive impact for sure,” Matzen said.
If you missed the presentation, you can learn more about the project on the city’s website here.