Orlando Sentinel: Osceola County Putting its Best Foot Forward

As Osceola County’s population booms, leaders are taking steps to ensure that its pedestrian injury and fatality rate does not.  On October 30, the county and cities of Kissimmee and St. Cloud launched the Best Foot Forward (BFF) initiative, aimed at improving driver yield rates through education, engineering and enforcement at selected crosswalks countywide. BFF partners will use best practices of Orange County’s BFF program which has been in place since 2012.

“The Best Foot Forward program is a good fit for Osceola County,” Osceola County Sheriff Russell Gibson told Orlando Sentinel reporter Ryan Gillespie. “This county is growing at such a rapid pace and many of these folks need to walk using our crosswalks and intersections, and we want them to get there safely.”

Last year in Osceola County, 148 people were injured and 19 were killed in crashes, a 30 percent increase from 2014 to 2016, as reported by the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.  “That’s just not acceptable,” said Gibson. “We want to make sure those numbers are going down.”

The Sentinel article reported that Osceola County Commissioner Cheryl Grieb said the implementation of Best Foot Forward is just one of the ways the county is looking to address its roads.

“We’re looking at land-development codes and encouraging and requiring more walkable communities,” Grieb said.

Want more details? Take a look at the Orlando Sentinel article, Osceola rolls out program to protect cyclists, pedestrians.