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Where the streets have four names
By LISA GREENE, Times Staff Writer On Starkey Road a few blocks south of East Bay Drive, Paulette Sklinar had just finished styling a client's hair at Paulette's Almost Heaven Hair and Nail Salon. A couple of blocks to the north, on Keene Road, Roberto Fanzago had just baked a fresh batch of hoagie rolls at Giovanni's Bakery. Same road, different name. Is it a problem? That depends on whom you ask. Pinellas County transportation officials have started to study the maze of county streets that change names and whether it's time to simplify them. Some say such an effort is years overdue. Others say changing names would only muddle things more. Omaha Street morphs into Keene Road, Keene into Starkey, Starkey into Park Street. Confused? Add to the mix that Keene stops dead and disappears for several blocks in Clearwater. And that at one point, Park Street crosses Park Boulevard. And that some folks just call any part of the road by its other name, County Road 1. "I have lived here for a long, long time," said county Commissioner Karen Seel, who grew up in Clearwater. "And I still get confused." Seel led county commissioners in asking the Metropolitan Planning Organization, the county's transportation planning board, to take up the issue. MPO staff members expect to report back next month. The county's new administrator, Steve Spratt, is trying to learn his way around all the new names. Among his pet peeves: the many names for Alt. U.S. 19, located just east of his office in the County Courthouse in downtown Clearwater. "I have to get used to four different names as I move north to south," he griped. But Commission Chairman Barbara Sheen Todd said last week that any effort to change names faces an uphill battle. She remembers the planning board doing the same study 12 or 15 years ago. "They were toying with, well, which names do you choose, then the businesses said, 'We don't want to change our stationery.' And cities want their names," she said. "It was not embraced real warmly." Mail carrier Kenny Martinaitis can imagine the uproar. "It's not confusing to us because we know what's going on," he said. "But it would be a catastrophe." Martinaitis hopped back in his mail truck in a driveway just west of where Rosery turns into McMullen. (Just in case you were wondering, that's McMullen, running east-west, not McMullen Booth, which runs north-south and is also, at various points, East Lake, the Bayside Bridge and 49th Street.) He said he's often stopped on this stretch of road by people who are lost. "It's fun when UPS asks me," he said with a laugh. The names sprouted as Pinellas grew and existing roads were connected to others, theorizes county planning director Brian Smith, who is working on the road question. He started ticking off the different names for the county's most egregious offender, Alt. U.S. 19. "Bay Pines Boulevard, Tyrone Boulevard . . . I can't remember it in St. Pete," he said. "Is it Fifth Avenue?" Some of the infatuation with different names comes from the cities who jostle against each other and want their own identities, Smith said. But he thinks single-name roads would add character in a sprawling county. It's already too hard to tell Ulmerton from Roosevelt without having them change to Walsingham or East Bay. "To most people, development looks very similar," Smith said. "You've got six-lane roads designed the same way, and they have the same restaurants and gas stations." But even Smith isn't yet sure how to make such changes. The staff still is working on who has legal authority to change such names, let alone how new names would be picked. Should you change the names of streets named for Pinellas settlers? And if so, which do you pick? Who's more important, Marion Ulmer, one of the Largo's first business leaders, or Jesse Walsingham, onetime fertilizer salesman and president of the county fair association? From her Starkey Road hair salon, Sklinar said such questions are best left unanswered. Eight months ago, her slice of Almost Heaven moved a quarter-mile up Starkey. Even with such a small move, she lost business. She doesn't want to go through more upheaval. "Life's difficult enough without them changing things to put more stuff in your head," she said, munching her fruit salad as Montel Williams played on the TV behind her. "Why don't they just let it alone?" Sklinar is sure she's speaking for the unbudging masses. After all, some of her clients have stuck with her for 25 years. For most people, change is just plain unsettling. "People do not do well with change," she said. "It affects people emotionally in ways you don't consider. It's very frustrating when you lose consistency." But less than 2 miles north, Roberto Fanzago says changing his Keene Road address to Starkey would be just fine with him. "It would make it much easier to explain," he said. "It's hard to give directions." Fanzago bought the bakery just a year ago after working there for four years. He showed off his loaves of rice and potato bread and explained how many sub shops use his hoagie rolls. He's sure the bakery will do just fine, new address or old. Of course, change only goes so far. When Fanzago bought the bakery a year ago, it stayed Giovanni's. "It's been here for 20 years," he said. "All the customers know it. So I pretty much got to keep the same name." Some things, you just can't change.
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