Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Upgrades to smooth 2 accident-plagued streets

By ANNE LINDBERG
Published April 18, 2007

PINELLAS PARK - After two years of delays, Pinellas Park officials have awarded contracts for projects designed to improve traffic flow on two major city streets.

The first project involves a stretch of Park Boulevard in front of Home Depot, an area considered one of the most crash-prone in the city.

The second involves 49th Street near Park Boulevard at the northernmost entrance to the Park Plaza Shopping Center.

Southwest Contracting Inc. will handle both projects, which will begin in two to three weeks.

City officials blame the tangle of red tape at the state level for the delay.

"I can honestly say (it's) not on the city of Pinellas Park's end," said Tom Nicholls, the city's traffic director. "We have not changed anything."

The state Department of Transportation is footing the bill for both projects, a combined $175,700.

The section of Park Boulevard that will be affected can be dangerous because of westbound traffic whipping across the bridge over U.S. 19. Those drivers are then confronted with a traffic light designed to help drivers leave the Shoppes at Park Place.

As they do, other traffic is trying to make a left turn into Home Depot, immediately west of the mall area. Other drivers are trying to turn left from the Home Depot parking lot to go west on Park.

The improvements, which will cost about $88,000, are supposed to cut accidents by 33 percent by providing a median that will prevent drivers from turning left out of the Home Depot parking lot.

The project on 49th Street will have a similar design at the northernmost entrance to the Park Plaza Shopping Center and is budgeted at $87,700.

[Last modified April 17, 2007, 20:03:00]