Future Leaders Learn What it Takes to Make Cities Walkable

Students from Rollins College got the opportunity to see, first hand, how local transportation engineers and city planners are successfully working to make Central Florida a better place for walkers, bikers and those that take public transit.

Through our BFF partnership with Rollins College, these future conservationists, city planners and up-and-coming leaders got a behind-the-scenes, exclusive walking tour of The City of Kissimmee. (See our picture gallery at the bottom of the page).

The tour, led by traffic and projects engineer, Nabil Muhaisen and Planning Manager, John Hambley, included a SunRail ride to the new Kissimmee station, a walking tour of downtown Kissimmee and the lake-front park.

They provided awesome insight into the transportation growth and city development. Kissimmee is leading the way in city planning, with pedestrian safety at the forefront of their designs.

Rollins students, Sianna and Professor Gunter arrived via SunRail at 2:50 in Kissimmee. Allyson, Nabil and John joined the group and began the walking tour of the city. Nabil and John pointed out that the Kissimmee SunRail station recently opened in 2018. In addition to the opening of the station, Kissimmee built multiple large parking garages to accommodate passengers.

They pointed out the narrowed streets, the brick roads and the raised speed bumps as part of the Complete Streets plan. The city planners then presented future plans for Kissimmee including the trail connectors, bicycle lanes and future plans for Kissimmee Lake Front Park.

Muhaisen and Hambley also pointed out the beautiful brick streets, which are designed to slow vehicle traffic, and sidewalks connecting the downtown shopping and eating scene to the beautiful Kissimmee Lakefront Park.

The trip ended with a gift bag given out by John and Nabil. The students, Sianna and Dr. Gunter traveled back to Winter Park via the 5:06 Sunrail.

Our Rollins College BFFers left the trip with new knowledge, ideas and visions after learning from our Kissimmee BFFers.