Lane Ranger

Here's some rough rides, with or without a license

Once upon a time, Wheeler Road and South Kingsway Road were, in fact, roads.

They were lovely drives, especially Wheeler. Residential developments on one side, a pasture of cattle on the other, all the way to Lakeview Park.

Today, the Mango and Seffner roads resemble a cross between the lunar landscape and a Chechen dirt bike trail. North to south, Kingsway is sealed off tighter than Grant's Tomb. East to west, Wheeler has more rough spots than Jeff Bezos' stock portfolio.

What's up with the pockmarked pathways? It all began in 1998, when Tampa Bay Water began studying well sites in eastern Hillsborough as potential sources for water in Hillsborough, Pinellas and Pasco Counties. They dug up the roads to install water lines as part of their Brandon Urban Dispersed Wells project.

Problem is, after laying the pipe, Tampa Bay Water didn't adequately repave the roads, according to the county. As a result, Tampa Bay Water has had to go back and do things right.

Commissioner Ronda Storms railed against the "dilapidation of the roadways" in a letter sent last year to residents affected by the construction.

Audi Canney, a spokesman for Storms' office, said the county threatened to withhold several right-of-way permits from Tampa Bay Water on other projects until they "get their act together" and finish rebuilding Mango and Seffner.

As for Kingsway, Tampa Bay Water isn't the only problem. The railroad crossing near Kingsway and Martin Luther King is being redone by CSX.

CSX spokesman Gary Sease said the Kingsway project should be done by this weekend, but more construction is on the way. Starting Monday, CSX will close up to 15 crossings between Plant City and Mango during the next two weeks to install some 18,000 cross ties.

"Doing Kingsway ahead of time gives us a detour route," Sease said.

In the meantime, Delta Food Mart, at the intersection of Wheeler and Kingsway -- the nexus of the construction universe -- will be an inconvenience store.

"It's killed the business," said Shabbir Lakhani, manager of Delta Food Mart. "They have made it one-way traffic right there in front of the store. ... Nobody wants to come in, because they can't turn left."

But there's no rush. After all, it's not like lives hang in the balance or anything. Right?

"All the roads in this area are causing me delay right now," said Chief Brad Price of the Seffner-Mango Volunteer Fire Department, located on Kingsway between Wheeler and Martin Luther King. "But it doesn't matter whether I oppose it or not. I don't get a vote in it."

At the moment, Wheeler is zero percent re-compacted and re-surfaced. Its original schedule called for it to be done last September, but Tampa Bay Water and county officials now predict a May completion date.

Kingsway is much closer. Tampa Bay Water says it is 90 percent done and should be done today, weather permitting.

Perhaps then residents can live happily ever after.

THERE ARE TIMES when crime simply does not pay. And there are times when innocence doesn't, either.

Consider, if you will, the case of a young lady in Ruskin who went out for a little Valentine's Day joyride.

The 12-year-old girl didn't have her driver's license. She didn't have her father's permission to take his '81 Chevy out on the road. And she sure as sugar didn't plan on driving into that ditch off NW First Street.

No charges were pressed, and the young driver escaped with only a citation for driving without a license. But something tells me she probably had a little more to deal with back at the house.

She certainly had it better than a motorist in Bloomingdale, who was driving down Lithia-Pinecrest Feb. 13, minding his own business, when another car pulled out from Bell Shoals Roadright into the passenger side of his Dodge.

When the police showed up, guess who they arrested? No, not the woman who nailed him. They arrested the Dodge driver for driving with a suspended license.

He may have been innocent in the crash, but he still got stuck with $1,000 worth of damage, an impounded car and a rap sheet.

So what we've learned is that you can drive into a ditch without a license and not be charged. And you can get rammed by someone else and end up in the clink.

That's an axie-worthy moral if ever I've heard one.

-- The Lane Ranger is currently stuck in traffic. But he can be reached at 661-2442 or cridlin@sptimes.com .