Geography
The city is northeast of and adjacent to Orlando. Elevation ranges between 66 and 97 feet (20 and 30 m) above sea level.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 10.2 square miles (26.3 km2). 8.7 square miles (22.5 km2) of it is land and 1.5 square miles (3.9 km2) of it (14.62%) is water. It is nestled among the Winter Park Chain of Lakes, a series of aquifer-fed lakes interconnected by a series of navigable canals, which were originally created for flood control and to run logs to a sawmill on present-day Lake Virginia. The lakes are popular for boating, watersports, fishing and swimming.
The city is traversed by the old Orlando-Oviedo ("Dinky Line") railroad bed, which until the 1960s had a stop at Lake Virginia/Rollins College at the city park now known as Dinky Dock. Much of this right of way has been converted to a rail-trail pedestrian/biking path in the form of the Cady Way Trail, which leads from Cady Way Park toward the Baldwin Park neighborhood and downtown Orlando, and in the opposite direction to Oviedo and beyond (via the Florida Trail), thanks to a new pedestrian bridge spanning Semoran Boulevard (SR 436) in Orange County.
Currently, CSX Transportation operates a rail line through Winter Park on the former Atlantic Coast Line, with an Amtrak station in downtown's historic Central Park.
Due to its close proximity to Orlando, Winter Park is a city which many commuters traverse to access downtown Orlando. These commuters come from outlying suburban areas such as Oviedo, Winter Springs, Maitland, Altamonte Springs and Casselberry. Winter Park's municipal government has combated speeding and aggressive driving in its downtown core and residential areas by lowering speed limits to 20 miles per hour (32 km/h) in some areas, adding textured traffic-calming brick roads, and aggressively enforcing the law within the city limits. These measures have contributed to some traffic congestion, but preserve the quality of life for residents and encourage pass-thru commuters to seek alternate, more appropriate high-speed routes to downtown (such as SR436/Semoran Blvd, Lake Howell Road, US17-92/Orlando Ave, Interstate 4, and the 408/East West Expressway and 417/Greeneway toll roads).
Read more about this topic: Winter Park, Florida
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