Ask Dr. Delay

Bizarre traffic configurations have all of us shaking our heads

By JEAN HELLER

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 18, 2000

ST. PETERSBURG -- It befuddles me (as many things do) why anybody would want to drive the so-called Miracle Mile of Ulmerton Road, the over-hoteled, over-fast-fed strip that lies south of St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport. But bazillions of you do drive it (a number that explodes to gazillions during the tourist season). I know because Jessie and I are among you every day commuting to and from work.

For six years, we have been trying to figure out why, oh why, the Florida Department of Transportation set up the westbound lanes as they are.

You come off the overpass that feeds Roosevelt Boulevard traffic onto westbound Ulmerton. You are in the right lane. You go through the traffic signal at 34th Street and soon are forced to merge left because you come upon a place where white crosshatching blankets the right lane, the highway version of a Do Not Enter sign.

On the far side of the cross-hatching, the lane opens again but as a right-turn only lane.

Lots of people every day want to make that right turn to get to a drug store, a dry cleaner, a popular local restaurant and other businesses on the north side of Ulmerton. Those cars first have to merge left into a through lane then move back again to the right lane after the cross-hatching ends.

Then there are the drivers who, through carelessness or defiance, simply plow through the cross-hatching to make the right turn.

If the right lane were designated as right turn-only as soon as traffic crosses 34th Street, motorists who don't want to make the turn would have plenty of time and space to merge left.

And it wouldn't require those who want to make the right turn to merge left and then move back to the right again with the companion risk of being hit by someone who ignored the intent of the cross-hatching.

It is an accepted fact of highway engineering that when lane changing can be kept to a minimum, accident rates decline. There is nothing minimal about lane changes on that stretch of Ulmerton, and we see accidents there more frequently than anywhere else in the region.

So we asked DOT about it, and they said they weren't quite sure why it is set up as it is. (This does not give us cause for confidence.) But they promised to go out and take a look to see if some improvements could be made. It would make Jessie and me, and probably a lot of you, feel less like we were driving through a game of bumper cars.

While we were visiting with DOT, we asked about a situation called to our attention by David C. Rowe, who says he's tired of watching his own version of bumper cars on Fifth Avenue N just west of 16th Street.

Both of the eastbound lanes suddenly become right-turn only lanes, crossing the railroad tracks and passing under I-275 to a traffic light at 16th Street. Through traffic has to move hard left into a new lane that suddenly appears to accommodate eastbound vehicles.

This has people zigging and zagging every which way, Rowe said, and we did see a couple of abrupt lane changes as we drove through the area a couple of times to check it out.

When you're on an interstate and lose two lanes, they disappear one at a time, with plenty of warning signs to move left. I'm thinking specifically of I-275 northbound between Gandy and Roosevelt and I-75 northbound just over the Pasco County line.

But on Fifth Avenue, there are no signs until you are right on top of the situation, no warning that you are approaching a very bizarre street configuration (bizarre being a technical highway engineering term) until you are right there.

DOT said the lane configuration was necessary because Fifth Avenue becomes one way.

But that doesn't happen until way up at Dr. M.L. King (Ninth) Street.

So why, we ask with the utmost respect for the folks at DOT, does the change have to be so abrupt and come as such a surprise to motorists unfamiliar with the area? Why couldn't the whole intersection have been built to make life easier and safer?

You have two lanes of traffic approaching 16th Street. Why didn't traffic engineers make the extreme right lane a right-turn only lane and the left lane a through lane? That would have eliminated the need for the new through lane. And it would be nice if there were some signs maybe a block or half a block back warning of the impending change in lane direction. The one remaining through lane would become a right-turn only lane at Ninth Street, making the transition complete.

Why do we have to think up these solutions?

Jessie and I aren't highway engineers.

It might be too late to change things now, but I would certainly like to pick the brains of the people who decided how this intersection would be set up. It makes no sense at all to my addled thinking.

Jessie came up with a neat idea for a new feature for this column. Since she is known around our house as the Pothole Pooch, she thought perhaps I should ask all of you good readers out there to contact us by one of the means below about your favorite potholes, and we will name a Pothole of the Week.

The street deformities you espy needn't be limited to potholes. They can be dips, chips, bumps or chunks -- any sort of flaw that annoys or endangers drivers and bikers.

And, hey, you folks out on the beaches, don't be hesitant to join in. I almost never hear from any of you.

Hello? Hello?

Is anybody out there?

I guess they're all out fishing.

-- 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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