Bardmoor light spells relief if synchronized

By JEAN HELLER

© St. Petersburg Times,
published July 8, 2001

Here we are, Jessie and the chauffeur, back again for another week. And a busy week it is, too.

Attention, Seminole: Be careful what you ask for. You might get it.

The county has heard your complaints and will give you a signal at the entrance to Bardmoor off Bryan Dairy Road just east of Starkey. It is a dangerous hassle to make a left turn onto Bryan Dairy coming out of Bardmoor, and this should help.

We just hope that the county gets the signals coordinated with those at the Starkey intersection. If they aren't coordinated, the result will be some monumental traffic backups, especially starting next year when the Bryan Dairy cut-through to I-275 is complete and starts sucking up traffic now using Ulmerton Road and Park Boulevard for east-west travel.

We'll hope for the best and trust that you'll let us know if this doesn't work out.

I don't know what it is about the streets in St. Petersburg. They seem to eat paint. It hasn't been that long since Central Avenue and the First Avenues, for example, got new lane striping. Only a year, in fact, since the lanes were reconfigured last summer to provide places for bicycles and more parking.

Now, just 12 short months later, there are sections of the asphalt where the lines are nearly impossible to see even on a bright, dry, sunny day.

Put a quarter-inch of rainwater and a thick deck of gray clouds over those streets and the striping disappears.

We have dealt with this subject before, but we were moved to do it again by an e-mail from Nan Griffin, who says she drives those streets frequently and finds them particularly confusing between 34th and 16th streets. We agree.

St. Petersburg officials told us last year that their goal is to restripe lanes once a year, but a lot of the work had fallen behind schedule because so much time and money were consumed by the various "traffic calming" efforts around downtown.

They include the "traffic dimes" in the northeast part of town (these things are too tiny to be called traffic circles), neckouts (those curb bulges that, in theory, make the road appear narrower and slow traffic) and a variety of new, fancy crosswalks, speed humps, brick work and median beautification.

We asked Mike Connors, the city guy in charge of Official Road Stuff, what was up with the striping, and he confirmed that the schedule had gotten all messed up last year when resources were diverted to traffic calming.

"We've revised the situation now, and all striping and signage work associated with traffic calming projects will come from the traffic calming capital improvement program," Mike said. "City crews will gradually move back to the maintenance work that didn't get our attention for a while."

We'll be bringing you a schedule for new striping soon.

Watch this space.

We have lots of Eyeball Jiggler issues to deal with this week.

John Hamilton sent us to 49th Street S to look at a peculiar manhole situation that is as inscrutable as it is annoying.

In the northbound lanes of 49th, from 15th Avenue S to Eighth Avenue S, there is a veritable plethora of manhole covers, nearly all of them below street level and exactly in the path of the left wheels of vehicles in the left lane.

The problem isn't that the manholes are so horribly sunken. Truth be told, there are very few manholes in the world that are perfectly flush with the surrounding pavement. The problem on 49th Street is the number of these things, about two per short block, so you feel as if you're running a gantlet. And just when you think you have positioned your car a little to the right to avoid the bumps, the manhole covers switch to the center of the street, where they lurk in wait to ambush your right wheels.

Sheesh.

There is, however, good news out there. Sort of Anti-Eyeball Jigglers of the Week.

You might have read this elsewhere in these pages, but it is worth repeating. Help is on the way for the most-hated square of road pavement in southern Pinellas County.

We asked you a few weeks ago to pick your least favorite places to be in a car, and the biggest vote-getter in the bunch was the intersection of Central and Pasadena avenues, where the potholes have potholes and most of the pavement is in pieces.

This intersection got at least three times more votes than any other, and believe me, you all called some real bad-boy intersections to our attention.

Now, the state roadies tell us, they are preparing a contract to have that entire swatch of patches at Pasadena and Central fixed properly. They can't say when it will happen, but they pledge that it will happen.

We choose to believe them, which could be folly all its own.

We are also told by the gurus of Pinellas Park that the absolute worst rail crossing in the county, on 62nd Avenue just west of 49th Street, will be repaired before the year is out. Jessie says if I believe that, I'm doubly foolish. But what the heck. I feel charitable this week.

And now, Dr. Delay's Terrible Traffic Tidbit of the Week:

The Texas Transportation Institute, which apparently does more than count cowboys on horseback, issued its 2001 Urban Mobility Report a few weeks ago, and it confirms what you always suspected -- you spend a whole lot of time in traffic.

A study of 68 urban areas found that the average delay from congestion (traffic, not nasal) is 36 hours per person per year. The average rush-hour trip takes 32 percent more time than the same trip taken in non-rush conditions.

No wonder. The same study found that rush hours have doubled in less than 20 years, increasing from three hours (morning and evening combined) to six hours. Congestion is now found during almost half the daylight hours on workdays.

Except, we suspect, on U.S. 19, where you have to double everything.

- 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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