West Palm Beach panel backs mobility fee, higher-frequency transit and safer bike lanes for downtown

At a public Downtown Master Plan panel in West Palm Beach, city staff, consultants and private mobility partners discussed steps the city will take to fund and expand multimodal transportation options in the downtown core.

Panelists and staff said they plan to introduce a mobility-fee ordinance so the city can collect developer transportation fees locally rather than having those funds go to the county. "Mobility fees are really going to change transportation for the city of West Palm Beach," said Jessica Keller, the city's mobility and transportation manager, adding that the city has identified about $97 million of capacity improvements over the next five years that the fee would help build. Keller said developers have paid about $50 million to the county in the past and that the new city ordinance will allow the money to be spent inside West Palm Beach.

The panel was convened by the city and a consultant team working on a downtown master plan update and zoning recommendations; the update will include refined transportation recommendations before a plan adoption process in the fall and winter. "We want you to be very forward thinking and aspire to think about what are opportunities that we can start to identify that would be ways to move around the city for the next 25 years," said Grace Perdomo of Siskovich Architects, who is working on the plan update.

Discussion and evidence: multimodal options, funding and safety

Panelists emphasized three broad priorities: build destinations…