Red light gives no pause to hurried
Drivers who don't want to wait at Roosevelt Boulevard and 28th Street N for the traffic signal make others shudder.
By JEAN HELLER, ANNE LINDBERG and JON WILSON, Times Staff Writers
© St. Petersburg Times,
published July 8, 2001
[Times photo: MIchael Rondou]
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At Roosevelt Boulevard and 28th Street N, vehicles wait in the right (no turn on red) turn lanes as an impatient driver whips around them on the shoulder to enter Roosevelt eastbound. Because traffic backups enrage drivers during the morning rush hour, the intersection is known for red-light runners.
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ST. PETERSBURG -- There are days, Teresa Stephen says, when she feels like a deer caught in somebody's headlights.
Stephen is trying to do something thousands of St. Petersburg drivers do each day, and something that should be relatively simple. She drives north on 28th Street N to turn right onto Roosevelt Boulevard. But because there are two right-turn lanes at the intersection, Stephen often feels like the center of a bull's-eye.
"The inside right-turn lane takes you way out into the center of this huge intersection with traffic coming at you (on Roosevelt) so fast," Stephen said. "It's crazy."
She would prefer not turning right on red at all, "but then the drivers behind you start honking," she said.
Their impatience is due in part to the fact that traffic backs up so far on 28th Street, particularly in the morning rush, that most cars have to wait at least two cycles of the lights to get through.
"Then there are some, quite a few in fact, that use the shoulder of the road as a third right-turn lane," she said, and sheriff's officials confirm.
The same intersection draws numerous complaints about red-light runners turning left from westbound Roosevelt onto southbound 28th. Some vehicles actually start into their left turns after the lights turn green for eastbound Roosevelt traffic.
Hundreds of drivers endure the same frustration as Stephen each day. But that's just a solitary spot of traffic pain in a vast landscape. There are lots more.
Bumper to bumper
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