I was walking my kids to Sand Pine Elementary School a couple years ago when we overheard an early-morning motorist on congested County Line Road uncork the kind of angry, hate-filled language you’d expect at a health care debate.

Stuck behind a line of traffic in front of the school, a pickup driver asked aloud, to no one: “What the %@#& is wrong now!”

The problem was the same one faced by motorists in densely-populated areas every $%&*@#! day: traffic.

Happily, that congestion, especially on County Line Road through sprawling Meadow Pointe I and II, has recently been eased by the opening of State Road 56 to Mansfield Boulevard. (The photo illustrates construction on the road a few months ago.)

As Tribune reporter Kevin Wiatrowski recently reported, the road’s opening has “freed school traffic to use the four-lane highway to reach Wiregrass Ranch High School and Long Middle School.”
Those schools are on Mansfield between S.R. 56 and County Line Road. Sand Pine is on County Line not far from Bruce B. Downs Boulevard.

Construction traffic to and from Meadow Pointe III and IV, on top of heavy residential traffic, made Meadow Pointe’s two entrances rush-hour headaches for years. The road opening has eased that considerably, especially when parents are dropping off or picking up kids at Sand Pine.

The extension must also offer some relief for the teenage drivers leaving Wiregrass High five days a week.

And, yes, the road also makes it much easier for Meadow Pointe residents to reach the monument of commercial opportunity known as The Shops at Wiregrass.

I’m just glad the new road has eased tensions as my kids head to school. Learning is a good thing. But if I wanted them to learn how to swear, I’d let them spend an hour in a newsroom.

Tampa Tribune photo by Andy Jones