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Neighbors fear flood of Idlewild faithful

A crowd urges the county to do something about the crush of traffic but can't agree on what.

By BILL COATS
Published September 23, 2005

LUTZ - Idlewild Baptist Church won't move to Lutz for another month, but it's already drawing crowds there.

More than 200 people from some of the community's oldest, lushest neighborhoods gathered this week in worry that traffic from the megachurch will flood past their homes.

Idlewild, with 9,200 members, plans to hold its first service Oct. 23 on the new campus off Van Dyke Road.

"The church is just going to increase momentously all the traffic that we already have," said Warren Mersereau, one of 40 people who stood in line to speak Tuesday night.

Nearly everyone wanted Hillsborough County to do something, but there was little consensus on what. A few called for better sheriff's patrols. Don Miller called for special patrols on Sunday morning. "They should get the collection plate out," he said.

Several speakers demanded speed humps; others condemned them.

"They're awful," complained Bob Alexander, who must drive across them already on Wilson Circle. "You beat yourself to death."

But Cecil Curry retorted later, "If we're angry at speed humps, maybe it's because we want to go a little too fast across them."

Many speakers, particularly on commuter-heavy Crenshaw Lake Road, said Idlewild will only worsen traffic that has been terrible for years.

Jonathan Galpin said he and his Crenshaw Lake neighbors simply want the traffic to go away. "My back-of-the-envelope solution is to put a tractor on the road at 8 miles per hour every rush hour for several months," Galpin said.

The biggest show of force came from Geraci Road, where neighborhood leaders collected 134 petition signatures asking that drivers exiting Idlewild onto Crystal Lake Road be banned from turning north onto Geraci, which already has speed humps.

"We have a rural neighborhood," said Tom Mead, representing the Wilson Lakes Neighborhood Association. "We have a quiet street and we ask that it be kept that way."

But the neighborhood with the greatest cause for concern probably is along Crystal Lake, which will join with the church's new Exciting Idlewild Boulevard to form a rare unbroken road connection between N Dale Mabry Highway and U.S. 41.

"Remember when we fought against the east-west road through Lutz?" Barbara Wolfe asked the crowd, pointing to a map. "Hello! There it is."

Yet several speakers said the lack of an east-west highway today is part of the problem, sending impatient commuters tailgating along country roads ill designed for rush hour. Several speakers urged that Van Dyke Road be widened and extended east to U.S. 41. When county transportation planners floated that idea years ago, the neighborhood that would be severed by such a move protested until the topic was dropped.

Other speakers in Tuesday night's meeting urged that the county simply require Idlewild to keep its new road private, with the eastern end closed. But the county decided years ago to open the road to the public.

Leaders of the Lutz Civic Association asked county officials in the meeting, as they have before, to somehow bypass a schedule that would postpone any traffic calming measures until mid 2006 at the soonest.

But Michael McCarthy, the county's director of traffic services, said that cannot legally be done. Engineers need to study Idlewild's traffic flow and give the public time to hear about options, he told the crowd.

Idlewild's plans are older than McCarthy's program. The church completed negotiations to buy the 144-acre campus late in 1999, and promptly disclosed that the deal included a commitment to build a road connecting Crystal Lake to Dale Mabry.

At that time, roads like Crystal Lake, Simmons and Van Dyke didn't qualify for the county's speed-hump program because, as collectors, they carried too much traffic. The program only applied to neighborhood roads like Geraci, which obtained humps five years ago.

But the county amended the program 21/2 years ago to include collectors, using gentler traffic-calming devices like speed tables and electronic warning signs. The process can take a year or more to complete.

"This is a hurricane-sized traffic problem coming," civic association president Steve Polzin said. "The time to start is right away."

Bill Coats can be reached at 813 269-5309 or coats@sptimes.com

[Last modified September 22, 2005, 09:00:09]