More new sidewalks open along Front Beach Road

BAY COUNTY, Fla. (WMBB) — Bay County commissioners are working to make the county more pedestrian-friendly.

Work is now complete on 2.5 more miles of sidewalk along Front Beach Road.

The two-phase project stretches from Kelly Street to East Lakeshore Drive on the west end of the county.

Bay County Commissioner Robert Carroll said he is pleased the heavily residential area will now be safer for people to walk around in.

“Pedestrian safety. That’s number one,” Carroll said. “People, if you go out there first thing in the morning, they’re running, they’re jogging, they’re on bicycles, they’re out with strollers so we’re grateful to have that. It promotes healthy activity and safety. As you know, we’ve got a tremendous amount of visitors that are coming here, we want to keep them safe and keep them coming back year after year.”

The county partnered with the Florida Department of Transportation in the installation of these sidewalks.

“We’re grateful that DOT, they’ve got money for pedestrian projects,” Carroll said. “We all want to make sure that we have a pedestrian-friendly community and this is closing out. There’s a slight change order that we had to do just for some unforeseen conditions and this will complete the project along Front Beach Road in that area.”

FDOT is also currently working on a 10-foot wide multi-use path that will stretch from west of Highway 79, to where it will connect with an existing multi-use path just over the Walton County line.”

The final contract price for both phases of the Front Beach Road Sidewalk Project is more than $2 million.

DOT grant money covered $1.2 million of that. The half-cent surtax paid for the rest.