Busy intersection too dangerous for crossing guard
But some students risk it instead of using a safer overpass, say Ridgecrest Elementary officials.
By SHANNON TAN
Published April 15, 2004
LARGO - Children dash across Ulmerton Road every day to get to Ridgecrest Elementary School on 119th Street.
They've been told to walk across a Pinellas Trail overpass a few blocks east of the intersection.
But many don't. Community leaders are asking for a crossing guard at that intersection - a request that has been made several times over the years.
The state is widening Ulmerton Road from four to six lanes, they say, and it's only going to get more dangerous.
"Why can't we have a crossing guard?" said Wanda McCawthan of the Friends of Ridgecrest. "It can't be too hard. It's only 20 minutes in the day, 20 minutes in the afternoon. There's crossing guards at all the other busy highways."
But Pinellas school, sheriff's and transportation officials decided that the intersection was too dangerous for a crossing guard.
And there was a safer way to cross Ulmerton Road - the Pinellas Trail overpass.
"That keeps them out of harm's way," said Sgt. Tim Pelella, who heads the Sheriff's Office's selective traffic enforcement program.
Still, up to a dozen children have been counted crossing Ulmerton Road anyway, Ridgecrest Elementary School principal Donna Benkert said.
The school reminded students in last week's newsletter to use the Pinellas Trail overpass.
"Some of them do, some of them don't," Benkert said. "We don't have 100 percent compliance."
Community activist Tasker Beal Jr. put it more plainly.
"No one is using the trail," he said.
Children have to go out of their way to use the overpass. Some residents have expressed concern about adults loitering near it.
But there isn't any crime data showing that it's dangerous for kids to use the trail, Pelella said.
Beal suggested that school officials assign a bus to ferry students to and from the school. But the Pinellas County School Board in 1998 stopped busing children who live within a 2-mile radius of a school.
Ridgecrest resident Barbara Price has given up trying to get a crossing guard at the intersection.
She's seen several drivers run a red light there. Now when she sees students about to cross the street, she gives them a ride instead.
"I have transported a few of them myself when I see them walking," said Price, 60.
In February, a Largo pedestrian was critically injured after he was hit by a car as he was running across Ulmerton Road near 119th Street.
No children have been injured crossing the road, but residents worry that it will take a serious accident before officials make any changes.
"We're looking at this seriously," Ridgecrest resident and retired educator James E. Feazell Sr. said.
