My recent column on safety issues surrounding the crosswalk at the foot of the Davis Islands bridge spurred a healthy response from locals, most of whom were crying out for a new solution.

Resident Linda Misner, who said her husband crosses that intersection daily while walking to and from work, feels the crosswalk’s placement is not the only problem – just the most obvious. “There is a bigger problem with drivers that speed over the bridge,” Misner wrote via e-mail. “These two things together create a huge safety issue. Currently there is nothing to slow these drivers down as they enter the island.”

She suggested adding speed humps similar to those on the Harbor Island bridge. They make speeding near impossible on the entrance to that island, and hump placement forces motorists to stop at crosswalks.

Omar Medina of South Tampa offered a similar but slightly less imposing solution: rumble strips. In his e-mail to the South Tampa News, Medina said traffic at the bridge base “far exceeds posted speed,” and felt the strips could slow drivers down and alert them to possible dangers.

Signage dedicated to that purpose does exist on the inbound bridge. A yellow flashing light and two arrow signs indicate the upcoming crosswalk, allowing attentive motorists a chance to perk up and use caution.

William Porth, traffic analysis supervisor with the city of Tampa, was involved in the crosswalk installation project at this site in October 2004. He explained moving the crossing closer to the bridge base increased safety, marking a strong improvement over the previous crosswalk, a stretch that sat some 150 feet south at Adalia Avenue.

“Pedestrians could not see vehicles, nor could vehicles see pedestrians,” Porth said of the former crossing. “Now, pedestrians can see traffic on the bridge all the way to the hump some 700 feet back.”

In addition to helping engineer the relocation and signage, Porth worked with area condo associations to trim oak trees and sea grapes near the bridge’s curve to provide a clearer view for drivers.

While he feels the situation was improved by these changes, Porth does agree “there’s really not a good place for a crosswalk there.”
With resident density increasing on Davis Islands, and a new building almost complete at nearby Tampa General Hospital, he knows all too well that traffic is going to get worse.

“It’s a tough spot. It’s a tough situation,” Porth said. “I don’t personally see a solution to fixing that anytime soon, but we are continuing to observe the site for (safety) issues and possible future changes.”

Unfortunately, it is not likely that speed humps or rumble strips will be among those changes. High inbound car volume on Bayshore Boulevard and Hyde Park Avenue classifies the Davis Islands bridge as a collector road, carrying too much traffic to qualify for calming devices.

Sounds a bit contradictory perhaps, but that’s how it works. Think of it this way: Take a street that supports a lot of cars back and forth everyday, cruising at speeds of about 35 miles per hour. Adding speed humps slows them down, but the number of vehicles does not change. Now, watch said cars begin backing up father down the road than the eye can see.

Porth said the point of entry from bridge onto island was studied with radar guns a few years back, and no excessive speeding was found. Drivers were clocked at somewhere around 37 miles per hour.

Again, Porth understands the concern, describing Hyde Park Avenue from Cleveland or Platt streets as feeling “kind of like a runway.”

“It lends itself well to driving fast, until you hit the bridge,” he said. “The sign there says 30 miles per hour. Prudent people slow down and come to an appropriate speed in that area,” he said, although agreeing pedestrians may perceive the cars as going faster than someone on foot might like.

“In a perfect world, we would have a sidewalk running down that whole side (of the bridge) all the way over to Bayshore,” Porth said.
But construction of a new sidewalk along that inbound lane would be a precarious undertaking, requiring a new bridge edge, new railing, and other improvements to the tune of millions.

I won’t hold my breath.

Porth pointed out that no pedestrian-to-vehicle crashes have occurred at the bridge base since the crosswalk was installed. Let’s hope it stays that way.

As conscientious drivers, we can do our part by taking care to put down the cell phones, slow down, and watch the road.

Be safe out there.

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