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South MLK gets some soothing improvementsBy JEAN HELLER © St. Petersburg Times, published April 22, 2001 Holy Moly, Batman, did you happen to set a tire on Dr. M.L. King (Ninth) Street S last week? Jeepers. It disappeared. We are not joking. Gone were all the bumps and humps and jostles and dips we have written about so fondly. Gone, too, was the pavement. The roadway from approximately 11th to 18th Avenue S was scooped up by an asphalt burglar and spirited away, and what was left behind was all dust, closed lanes and protruding manhole covers that nearly took the steering wheel out of Jessie's paws when she hit the first one. (Well, okay, Jessie wasn't really driving, but she likes to sit in my lap every once in a while and pretend she is.) First, let's deal with the signage issue in the area of this construction. As we approached 11th Avenue from the north, the warning said, "Right lane closed ahead." Uh, no. The inside northbound and southbound lanes -- the "left" lanes -- were closed. The curb lanes -- the "right" lanes -- were open. Well, they were open if you consider ripped-up, torn-down roadway to be an open thoroughfare. Perhaps it would be better to say there were no barricades or other impediments to our proceeding forward at our own peril. And the roadway wasn't the only thing out to bite you. The day Jessie and I passed through, there was a big truck with roller brushes going up and down the closed lanes throwing dust and little pieces of pavement at passing cars. Dodge 'em was a fun game when I was a kid in grade school and the object I was attempting to avoid was a light-weight hollow rubber ball. It's less fun in a real car on a real street when the rubber balls turn to rocks. Mike Connors, St. Petersburg's "Street Guy," tells us that by the time you read this, barring unforeseen complications, much of the work will have been completed, and that stretch of MLK will be nicer than it has been in years. "We'll be doing work on the turns into intersecting streets for another few days," Mike said, "but it was a pretty quick project." For their bone-jarring, teeth-smashing, axle-breaking qualities -- their brief life span notwithstanding -- these lanes of MLK win hands-down, no-contest today's Eyeball Jiggler of the Week award. A number of you have asked what the huge area of construction is west of the Roosevelt Boulevard interchange with I-275, and we're here to tell you. Actually, we're here to tell you again. We mentioned this once before, when the work was first announced, but it is worth repeating. The state roadies' project is a new connector between 118th Avenue N (County Road 296) and the interstate at the Roosevelt interchange. The project will provide a four-lane divided highway link to both northbound and southbound I-275 from 118th Avenue N and a connection to 118th Avenue N from southbound I-275. The half-mile of new road will stretch from 31st Court N to I-275. The $21-million project is scheduled for completion in the fall of 2002. Now you know. There is nothing that piles up more mail on this desk than the construction, or lack thereof, on 34th Street N and S. I venture to guess there is not a single one of you out there who has not cursed at, or at least whined over, the various states of half-completed construction along that heavily used St. Petersburg street. We have explained a couple of times that the paving isn't being completed now because infrastructure work remains to be done, and until that work is completed, none of the paving will be finished. When the state roadies do a project like this, they contract with multiple crews. One comes in to do traffic control, then another to do the milling -- which is the removal of old street surface -- then another to do utility work, another to work on manholes and another to do asphalt. They work in waves, completing all of one task before moving on to another. Therefore, no final paving will be done until the entire length of street is ready. It irritates Jessie to no end that she sees only little pockets of work being done on 34th Street at any given moment. But the state roadies say doing it this way saves money. Just to keep you on top of the street conditions, Jessie and I toured 34th Street last week from Central Avenue south and found these work pockets: Lane closures continued to plague northbound and southbound 34th Street from 38th to 26th Avenue S. More lane closures squeezed traffic between 11th and Fifth avenues S, and at least until April 27, there is no access off 34th Street to Eighth Avenue. We'll take a look at 34th Street north of Central Avenue next week. We can hardly wait. Well, we've got some grumbling soccer moms out there, bemoaning the appearance of a bunch of humongous speed humps in the area of Puryear Park along 58th Avenue N and Davison Avenue NE. How, they ask, are they to speed to and from their kiddies' kick-ball matches if the neighborhoods want them to slow down? It's an outrage, they say. An outrage! Jessie happens to be pro-traffic calming as a way to make streets safe for dogs and cats and birds and the little kids who love them. I have to admit, I'm kind of with Jessie on that. And now, finally, Dr. Delay's Terrible Traffic Tidbit of the Week: Every time a person switches from a private car to public transit, it saves 200 gallons of gasoline a year. In the nation's five largest cities, a 10 percent switch in ridership to public transportation would save 85-million gallons of gasoline. A 10 percent switch nationwide would save 135-million gallons. We would switch to the bus, but they won't let Jessie ride. Alas. -- 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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