Ask Dr. Delay

Please, slow down for I-275 road work

By JEAN HELLER

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 9, 2000

It's obvious that the construction under way on Interstate 275 between Gandy and Roosevelt is annoying people, if traffic speed is any indication. Folks are trying to get through the area as fast as they can.

The construction zone is clearly posted at 55 mph, 10 miles an hour below the rest of the interstate in Pinellas County. But you couldn't prove that by the 65 and 70 mph that seems to be the norm for most drivers. One day soon, the speeding is going to get costly.

John McShaffrey, a spokesman for the Florida Department of Transportation, said the Florida Highway Patrol will begin enforcing the lower construction speeds, and the fine for violations is double the normal speeding ticket.

To be sure, it is difficult to force yourself to slow down in the area south of the immediate construction, where there are no concrete barriers or any sign of work on the road itself. But that stretch, which will be under construction eventually, is nonetheless covered by the speed restriction.

Lest you think that FHP presence in the construction area might lessen Smokey vigilance elsewhere, McShaffrey said the troopers who will patrol I-275 construction zones will do so during their off-duty hours on a hire-back program paid for by the Department of Transportation. In other words, they will be doing a little extra work for a little extra money.

That might make them happy, but if one of them appears with lights flashing in your rear-view mirror, it isn't going to do anything good for your mood.

Anyhow, Jessie the Westie thought you should be warned.

You might as well get used to slowing down. Even before the Gandy-to-Roosevelt section is completed -- scheduled for fall 2001 -- the barriers will start going up as widening starts on I-275 from Roosevelt north almost to the Howard Frankland Bridge.

That stretch should be finished two years later. The two projects will overlap, but not by more than a few weeks to a few months, McShaffrey said.

"In addition to increasing the road by a lane in either direction, to a total of eight lanes in all, we will be replacing broken or deteriorating concrete slabs in the existing roadway," he said. "The widening is all taking place between the northbound and southbound lanes, behind concrete barriers. But the slab replacement will require some night closures of existing lanes from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m."

McShaffrey said he didn't think the closures would cause severe traffic disruptions.

"We've done night lane closures before, and we had no problems," he said. "We will take night baseball games and other events into consideration. We'll either push the closures back until later in the evening or not schedule work on those nights at all."

It takes two nights to replace a single slab, which is one lane wide and 20 feet long. The first night is spent breaking up the old concrete. During the second night, the debris is cleaned out and the section is formed up and filled with a quick-drying concrete.

"It needs six hours to dry to the point that traffic can run on it, so we're working on a very close timetable," McShaffrey said. "That almost demands that we not try to do any work out there on ballgame nights."

According to Ron Glass, DOT project manager, the work being done and scheduled for the northern sections of I-275 in Pinellas is only the tip of the sand dune.

"We'll be doing concrete rehabilitation from Gandy all the way to the Sunshine Skyway eventually," Glass said. "We don't have a firm schedule yet. We've been working with the county on the sequencing, and we do have a commitment to work with the city of St. Petersburg on the baseball game issue."

Note: One lane will be closed periodically on eastbound and westbound Roosevelt Boulevard under I-275 tonight through Thursday night, April 9 to 13, between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m.

Speaking of I-275 construction, this doesn't have anything to do with actual roadways or traffic, but did it bother you as much as it bothered Jessie and me to see all those shrubs out there drying and rotting in the sun as ground was cleared for the new lanes of traffic? Even if you're not a plant lover, that was landscaping that cost taxpayer bucks to put in. It was simply bulldozed into oblivion.

"Much of it belonged to the city of St. Petersburg," McShaffrey said. "The city did manage to reclaim some of the plants but, unfortunately, it is often a lot more expensive to move plants than to just knock them over and haul them away."

St. Petersburg Parks director Dell Holmes acknowledged that some plants, "oleander mostly," did give their lives for the new highway.

Given the gross orange caterpillars with the coal black silia that live and chomp on oleander, I personally don't mind seeing as much of it go as possible. But it is a good xeriscape plant, which is why you see so much of it along highways. If it doesn't rain, the oleander doesn't care.

Other vegetation was salvaged, Holmes said.

"The palm trees we took out we've got lying against an embankment on Roosevelt waiting to be replanted," Holmes said. "They're being watered regularly, and they'll be fine."

Holmes said 1 percent of the capital cost of the construction project has been budgeted for new landscaping when the road is completed.

I stood at a corner window in the St. Petersburg Times building one day recently as several emergency vehicles, lights flashing and sirens wailing, sped east on First Avenue S toward an emergency. Southbound traffic on Fourth Street paid no attention, cutting in front of the emergency vehicles, slowing them down and, finally, bringing them almost to a standstill.

I see this all the time around here.

Does it ever occur to anyone that somebody's life might hinge on the seconds the emergency vehicles lose as they pause to get through an intersection where they have the right-of-way?

-- Dr. Delay can be reached by e-mail at docdelay@sptimes.com, by fax at (727) 893-8675 or by snail mail at 490 First Ave., S, St. Petersburg 33701.

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