I want to start off with a clarification, and an apology.

In my push to complete last week’s column about an accident on Bay to Bay Boulevard, it seems I didn’t get all the facts straight.

The crash involved a red sedan and gold SUV colliding on Bay to Bay near South Esperanza Avenue. I described the sedan as pulling out of the Beach Park Academy II parking lot and attempting to head west by crossing oncoming traffic.

Two calls from the academy set me straight – the sedan was actually pulling out of Coyle Realty’s parking lot, directly next door to the day care.

I regret the error, and any confusion it has caused.

Road work ahead?

You can’t get behind the wheel without taking notice – our roads are sorely in need of some TLC. According to a recent city audit, at least half of Tampa’s street network is in need of repair. That’s more than 8,000 roadways.

More than 100 of those roads are in such poor condition parts of them are considered barely adequate for travel, and our own MacDill Avenue is in that Top 100.

Of particular note is the intersection at MacDill and Azeele Street. I mentioned it earlier this year in a column about high-incident traffic crash locations. At the time, the junction of MacDill and Azeele was among the Top 10 crash sites in Tampa.

It has since been knocked off the list, but the intersection clearly needs work. The road’s surface is pockmarked with holes, and many of the pavement markings are obscured.

A resurfacing and repainting could do more than enhance aesthetics and smoothen the ride – it could provide better stopping cues for drivers.

In a March 2003 story, Tampa Tribune reporter B.C. Manion wrote about city plans to improve safety at the intersection by adding turn lanes on all four approaches. At that time, city traffic engineer Debbie Herrington told Manion she expected the $750,000 road project to take about nine months.

Two-plus years later, I’m trying to find out what the hold up is all about.

Herrington and I played phone tag all week. She left me a message saying the city still plans to widen that intersection to include left turn lanes, but I didn’t find out anything about the delay. I’ll hit the phones again next week and see what turns up.

Meanwhile, I did get some input from local motorists. South Tampa resident Barbara Orban said her son was involved an accident at the MacDill/Azeele intersection in April 2003.

“Looking at the car, I thought he would’ve been killed,” Orban said. Fortunately, there were no fatalities, but the boy’s car flipped over and he spent time in the emergency room.

Orban, a faculty member at University of South Florida’s college of public health, would like to see a new traffic signal erected at the intersection.

“I just cannot believe the bad condition of these roads,” she said, adding that the traffic fatality rate in her former home city in southern California was “half of what it is in Tampa.”

She said adjusting yellow lights to run longer could reduce red-light running, which often leads to accidents. Swapping out the intersection’s current traffic lights, which are outdated and hang low suspended from cables, could also help.

“One way to reduce crashes is to modernize traffic signals,” Orban said. “At certain points on this intersection, you can’t see these lights if you’re in the first car. This same accident could happen again.”

Orban offered up statistics from the Federal Highway Administration that provide correlation between road improvements and fatality rate reductions.

Evaluations made by the administration found sight-distance improvements at intersections reduced fatalities by 56 percent over a 20-year period. New traffic signals reduced fatalities by 53 percent over that same time period, and addition of turning lanes led to a 47 percent drop over the years.

Every $100 million invested in highway safety improvements will result in approximately 145 fewer traffic fatalities over a 10-year period, the administration states online.

“They put in new traffic signals and changed markings on pavement (to renew California’s older roads),” Orban said. “Here it looks like they just don’t put much money into them at all.”

More than $5 million is budgeted for city road repairs this fiscal year. Orban can’t wait to see them start using it.

Like most of us, she wants to see changes that will reduce the number of crashes.

Until then, drive carefully out there.



Send rants and raves about South Tampa traffic to Mitzi Gordon at .