Northpinellas: Battle against speeders plods on

CLEARWATER -- Neighbors in Hillcrest went door to door last year, collecting signatures on petitions to have the city install medians, speed tables and roundabouts to slow speeding cars that cut through the area between Belleair and Lakeview Roads.

"We thought we were being proactive," said real estate agent Richard Taylor, who has lived in Hillcrest about two years. "We weren't doing this because one of our neighbors had lost a child and we now have a problem. We were trying to do this before anything tragic happened."

Then last week, a 5-year-old child was hit by a car on Regal Road in the Hillcrest area, exactly the accident that residents had feared could occur. Garrett Johnson was in fair condition Friday at Bayfront Medical Center with a broken leg.

The accident renewed cries for "traffic calming" measures like speed tables -- a raised area in a roadway that looks like an oversized speed bump -- to be installed in Hillcrest and other neighborhoods across the city. Neighborhood residents feel the city has promised them the projects.

But the city's traffic program has limited funding and great demand, and as long as that's the case, areas like Hillcrest may not see improvements until 2004 or later. Hillcrest actually ranks last on a list of neighborhoods where the city plans to install traffic calming measures over five years, according to a city safety committee of police officers, firefighters and traffic engineers.

Interim City Manager Bill Horne said that he understands neighborhood concerns that the city isn't moving quickly enough.

"It's understandable that people would be very upset, and (the recent accident) would focus attention on it," Horne said. "But there are so many areas around the city that we could react to."

"I believe the old commission saw that traffic calming could take up all the money that we have to give," Horne said. "We know it's popular, just like reclaimed water."

However, Horne said he'll ask the commission in July if it wants to increase funding for traffic calming projects. With three new commissioners elected this month, Horne said, the newly constituted body may want to take another look at the issue.

"I think this is one of the things where the commission could make a difference," Horne said.

The neighborhoods on the city's traffic calming list were prioritized based on the raw number of accidents in them -- not necessarily the severity of the accidents.

Hillcrest saw only six accidents, none of them involving a pedestrian, during a period from 1998 through mid 2000, which the city's safety committee reviewed.

Meanwhile, North Greenwood, the top-ranked neighborhood for traffic calming, had 116 accidents, with 10 of those involving pedestrians, city records show.

"We have budgetary limits, and we had to have some method to prioritize this so it would be fair," said City Engineer Mike Quillen.

But even in the neighborhoods with lower accident statistics, some residents still view speeding traffic as a major problem the city should prioritize.

"Even trying to get a stop sign approved here is like trying to get something passed through Congress," Taylor said. "Some of the neighbors are ready to go out there with sand bags sometimes and make our own speed bumps. It's really frustrating it's such a slow process."

Taylor said he knows a couple who moved out of Hillcrest because of concerns about speeding cars on the area's straight streets just off Missouri Avenue. He worries about children at play, and people walking their pets. Taylor said his two pet mallard ducks, named Princess and E.T., were killed in front of his house by speeding cars.

"I know they were ducks," he said. "But they had names. I had to go out and scoop them out of the street."

The outcry might not be as loud if some residents didn't feel the city held out promises of traffic calming last year, when residents of eight city neighborhoods were thrilled to find out about the city's new traffic initiative.

Hillcrest residents, along with the people from other neighborhoods where there had been complaints about speeding cars, were invited to meet with city traffic engineers and brainstorm plans to slow traffic down near their homes.

The city set aside more than $600,000 to pay for implementing the plans that the neighborhoods created, which included tree-scaped medians, roundabouts and street closings. The only requirement to participate was that each subdivision had to persuade 65 percent of its property owners to sign petitions in support of the projects.

Residents at the traffic planning sessions last summer went away with the impression that they could work hard to garner support, and their plans could be put in place rather promptly.

"We thought, wow, they're asking our opinion. This can work," said Jennifer Rebokus-Scott, who was involved with Wood Valley's traffic planning session a year ago.

"But we've been kind of soured after that," she said. "After we got our signatures, then we realized there were a total of eight neighborhoods and our neighborhood ranked fifth. We're very dissatisfied with the city's pace on this."

Wood Valley in east Clearwater ranks behind North Greenwood, Skycrest, Betty Lane and northern Saturn Avenue on the city's priority list. Residents in Morningside have expressed similar concerns to the city.

"You want to see people walking on the sidewalk and little kids playing in the front yard," Rebokus-Scott said. "You don't want to have to worry about people using your neighborhood as a cut-through, where a little kid that rolls a ball out into the street could get slaughtered."

Rebokus-Scott said that her neighborhood gave all of its petitions to the city last fall, but other neighborhoods higher on the list have delayed in getting their petitions signed. That's slowed down other projects lower on the list, she said.

The city has extended its deadline for petitions to be signed until July. In the top-ranked neighborhood on the list, North Greenwood, residents are still taking around books of petitions for signatures. Community leaders hope to finish the effort by month's end, said Muhammad Abdur-Rahim, past president of the North Greenwood Association.

"It's rigorous," Abdur-Rahim said, because North Greenwood must get the owners of about 1,200 properties to sign petitions. "It's been overwhelming to get that many signatures. Some people are like, "What are you talking about? I don't need that on this street."'

In other areas, he said, people share the same concerns about blind spots, children playing and cut-though traffic.

Quillen said the city is already working to accomplish a traffic calming project in Grandview Terrace. Horne said the city might be able to consider some stopgap efforts to slow cars down in problem areas while neighborhoods are waiting for their traffic plans to be put in place.

"We are increasing our enforcement on Hillcrest Avenue, and we'll be working with them there as best we can," Horne said. "I'm going to look at the neighborhoods on the waiting list for major plans, if they could benefit from any temporary measures."

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