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Green light for their stoplight

Crescent Oaks residents win the Metropolitan Planning Organization's okay for a traffic signal at the entrance to their subdivision off East Lake Road.

By THERESA BLACKWELL
Published October 12, 2006

Crescent Oaks residents arrived at the Pinellas County Courthouse on Wednesday on a Trailways bus.

Dozens poured out, ready to tell the county Metropolitan Planning Organization why they so desperately need a traffic signal at the entrance to their subdivision on East Lake Road, just south of the Pinellas-Pasco county line.

By the time they started the bus trip home, they had cause for celebration.

Though county staff members spoke against it, the MPO heard the community's angst and voted to recommend that Pinellas County commissioners give them that signal.

"It took us a year and a half, but we finally won one," homeowners association president John Miolla said, shaking hands warmly with Bob Loos, the subdivision's principal speaker at the meeting.

County public works officials had studied East Lake Road's intersection with Crescent Oaks several times, turning down the request for a signal because the volume of traffic and other considerations did not meet the guidelines for installing a stoplight.

The subdivision persisted with some encouragement from Commissioner Susan Latvala. She said the subdivision has a dangerous situation and she would get the question on the County Commission's agenda but that they would have to come out in force for public hearings.

In July, commissioners requested that the MPO's Traffic Signals and Median Control Committee take another look at public works' reasons for rejecting the light.

On Wednesday, Wilfred Sergeant, who came from Largo for another hearing, looked across the room full of Crescent Oaks residents.

"I don't think there's anybody left in the subdivision," he said. "They're all here."

First, county transportation director Pete Yauch said adding a traffic light to an intersection like the one at Crescent Oaks, which doesn't have a history of frequent accidents, can actually increase the number of accidents. More rear-end collisions, he said, may occur as traffic backs up at the light on East Lake Road.

A subdivision that size should have two exits, he said, though Crescent Oaks has just one and that concentrates all the traffic to a single point.

To remedy confusion in the median, officials recommended painting channels in the median on East Lake Road to route traffic more efficiently.

Along with that, officials recommended a new left-turn signal and left-turn lane at the northbound side of East Lake Road at Trinity Boulevard.

But MPO members sided with the neighborhood, noting Crescent Oaks' arguments that persuaded them to vote for the signal:

- If the intersection doesn't quite qualify for a signal now, it probably will within a year or so with the ever-increasing traffic on East Lake Road, now used by 48,000 vehicles a day.

- A 16-year-old girl, new to driving, said getting across East Lake Road to turn left and go to East Lake High School is frightening. She also said school buses have no place to turn around at the intersection before going south, so they have to head north until they can turn around.

- A private golf and tennis club brings in additional traffic, frequently hosting large weddings.

- The speed limit of 55 mph on East Lake Road makes it hard for residents to make it out. One said maybe she needed to trade her Cadillac in for a Ferrari.

- Speeders cut over abruptly into the right lane at the subdivision entrance in anticipation of turning right at Trinity Boulevard, sometimes to beat the light.

- The advanced age of many residents, though residents themselves were less receptive to that argument.

In addition to recommending that the signal be installed, the MPO plans to ask the Sheriff's Office for more enforcement of the speed limit on that stretch of East Lake Road. The MPO also will look into reducing the speed limit to 50 mph, as it is on much of East Lake Road south of Keystone Road.

The County Commission will make the final decision on the signal.

Theresa Blackwell can be reached at tblackwell@sptimes.com or 727 445-4170.

[Last modified October 11, 2006, 23:01:15]