Challenge
Exploria Stadium, Camping World Stadium, the Amway Center, and Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts in Downtown Orlando attract visitors from Central Florida and beyond with their many offerings. The highway systems provide regional access to these venues, but vehicular access to and from the highways often impedes the movements of pedestrians who are also heading to the event. Additionally, each venue relies on the parking garages within Downtown Orlando to supplement their own parking, if it is available. Wayfinding and communicating available parking for vehicles prior to entering downtown is important to minimize the vehicular circulation (and driver frustration) on the streets as drivers search for reliable, available parking.
Solution
Kittelson has worked with the City of Orlando, Orlando Police Department, and Orlando Venues staff to meet the challenge of creating safer roads for all travelers. Among these strategies are parking improvements, modifications to the traffic management plan, additional wayfinding, and sidewalk widening and lighting improvements to increase safety for both vehicles and pedestrians.
The Outcome
Improving mobility and safety for attendees of events at Downtown Orlando sports and entertainment venues.
Improvements are still in progress, given that the COVID-19 pandemic caused a shutdown of all live events in the middle of the project. However, we have kept working with the project team to assist in testing strategies with smaller crowds as spectators have been slowly reintroduced to events at the Amway Center. Updates to the current wayfinding are also being made to be consistent with current construction surrounding the nearby freeway construction (the I-4 Ultimate project).
