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Wider Starkey to put squeeze on firehouse

Seminole officials worry about safety once the road is finished. Traffic will need to be stopped every time a truck exits.

By ANNE LINDBERG
Published June 22, 2005

SEMINOLE - Space will be so tight at Fire Station 30 once Starkey Road is widened that the trucks will barely be out of the building before they're in the traffic lanes.

That scenario has Seminole city officials worried.

"This has potential to be a dangerous situation," council member Dan Hester said.

Hester was reacting to a report from City Manager Frank Edmunds, who said he had approached the county, which pays 75 percent of Seminole's fire budget and must approve moving or building a new station. The estimated cost is $2.5-million to $3-million.

But Edmunds said Pinellas County officials were not receptive to his plea.

County officials, he said, seemed to think that installation of warning lights that will stop traffic on Starkey Road when emergency vehicles leave the station will be sufficient to guarantee safety.

"It's very difficult to argue that we should expend $2.5-million to $3-million on something that may be unsafe," Edmunds said.

Problems will not arise only during emergencies, Edmunds said. Emergency vehicles leave the station for maintenance, training and when firefighters need to go to the grocery store. To ensure safety, the traffic along Starkey will have to be stopped every time the firetrucks leave.

"I suspect someone will be getting complaint calls," Edmunds said. But "if the traffic's not stopped, that will be a dangerous condition."

Station 30, which is already a tight fit next to Starkey, will lose no right of way or other property to the widening. But the road will have three lanes in each direction and the intersection at the station will have traffic lights, which will add to the congestion and confusion.

A wider road will also make it impossible to park the larger trucks on the front pad because the sidewalk will literally be under the front wheels of some of the vehicles.

Edmunds said he could do nothing more at this time to convince the county to reconsider. It's a situation, he said, of waiting until after the road is widened to see if problems develop.

In the meantime, he said, the city's fire union is contacting county administrators about its safety concerns. The council members, he said, were free to contact county commissioners if they thought that would help.

[Last modified June 22, 2005, 01:09:13]