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Road's danger prompts action
By JANE BOKUN © St. Petersburg Times, published February 25, 2001 Countryway residents Janet and Mark Busing knew there would be trouble when it started to rain. "I told my wife, "There's going to be an accident,' " said Mark Busing, 38, a resident of the Woodlands subdivision. The Busings and other residents have reason to be fearful. Accidents happen in their back yards when motorists hit a 6-foot-high concrete block wall that borders Countryway Boulevard from Snapdragon Road near Old Memorial Highway to Waters Avenue. The stucco-covered wall has been hit 120 times during the past five years, said Deputy James Boyle of the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office. There have been a few serious injuries, but no fatalities so far, Boyle said. Mark Busing said accidents involving the wall, which buffers the subdivision from the main road, are more frequent when the pavement is wet. Boyle said the bigger problem is speeding or inattentive drivers, not the winding road. "People coming from Old Memorial Highway and Countryway Boulevard near the corner who are traveling north are not paying attention to a road that's often wet from sprinkler water," Boyle said. "They panic and slide off the road and oftentimes hit the wall or a light pole." "I believe it's a fault with the drivers of the motor vehicles," he said. "Once, they had two crashes in one night. They come up too fast. We put markers in the road warning speeders, but they ignore them." In the past year, drivers hit the wall at least 25 times; they knocked it down at least four times, Boyle said. Neighbors in the small subdivision behind the wall are not happy. Repairs for the accident-prone wall are costly. University Properties Inc., property manager of Countryway, foots the bill for the repairs. Guy Yaple, community association manager with University Properties, said it costs $5,000 each time the wall comes down. Damage caused by the most recent incident was more extensive and the cost will be about $15,000, he said. Money aside, Janet Busing worries more about the lives that could be lost. "The corner that keeps getting hit is also a school bus stop," said the 35-year-old. "The kids stand on the corner in the morning waiting for the buses with their backs to traffic." Her husband, Mark, said the frequent accidents have forced him to take precautions to protect their 6-year-old daughter, Krista. "I moved her bedroom from the back of the house to the front," he said, because the wall is only about 8 feet away from his home. The hazardous area off Old Memorial Highway also is near the new Alonso Braulio High School, set to open next year. The Busings have voiced their concerns to the Hillsborough Country Sheriff's Office and plan to bring up the matter at the next homeowners association meeting on March 28. Cpl. Carmine Pisano of District 3 said he has recommended that the dangerous corner be reviewed by the sheriff's office. Pisano said the sheriff's office never fails to address a request from citizens and he has received several requests to do traffic studies in that area. "We're going to be putting up a smart trailer with a computer inside that logs the speed and volume of cars" to determine whether there is a problem, Pisano said. The sheriff's office will be paying special attention to the area in the next few months, including stationing more radar guns in the area, he said. Meanwhile, Boyle said, any violators who are caught will get a ticket with a hefty fine. "The speed limit for that corner is 30 miles per hour, and if you're traveling at 50 miles per hour, it's a $170 fine for speeding," he said.
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