30 seconds could save lives if only Clearwater would vote to make Drew Street safer | Editorial
Is it worth 30 seconds to save lives and stem traffic crashes? That’s the simple question the Clearwater City Council should consider on Thursday when it votes on safety improvements for a section of Drew Street.
This issue has been studied for years. Now, Clearwater has a chance to fix a dangerous street. From 2020 through 2022, a 2.3-mile section of the road from Osceola Avenue to Keene Road had more than 500 crashes. Sixty people were hurt and one died, according to Pinellas County data. Since 2015, seven have been killed. Something needs to be done.
The Florida Department of Transportation has a safety plan. It would convert the current four lanes to three. There would be one lane in each direction, with a center turn lane for most of the distance and new crosswalks, a bike lane and wider sidewalks. Crashes are projected to decrease by 57%.
The design would greatly reduce mayhem. What’s the downside? The state’s study shows that the lane changes on Drew would increase travel time from Osceola Avenue to Keene Road by less than 30 seconds. Compare the two numbers: Add 30 seconds to cut crashes by 57%.
Who wouldn’t accept that deal? Maybe not the Clearwater City Council. There is a new mayor and council and new skepticism of the plan. They will vote on the proposal this Thursday, but at a workshop on Monday, its members peppered Florida Department of Transportation officials with a barrage of critical questions.
In short, several of them just don’t believe that the design will work and assert that the residents don’t want it. “Overwhelmingly, our citizens do not support this,” Mayor Bruce Rector said bluntly. He cited his own recent election as evidence. But citizens aren’t typically voting on a single issue, anecdotes aren’t statistics, and it’s the job of city leaders to, well, lead. Whit Blanton, executive director of Forward Pinellas, the county’s transportation planning agency, told the Editorial Board that Clearwater residents have voiced support for, even demanded, these changes in public meetings over the years.
Some opponents have trouble believing that the state could eliminate a lane in each direction without significantly slowing down cars. But that fails to take into account how a dedicated center turn lane keeps traffic moving smoothly and safely. Blanton elaborated to the Editorial Board on this major point, which did not even come up at the workshop. To turn left, a driver who leaves his home on Drew Street currently has to cross two lanes of oncoming traffic and then accelerate to merge into a third lane going the other way. That’s obviously dangerous. Under the Drew Street proposal, that same driver would cross only one lane of traffic, then take refuge in the quiet center turn lane before merging with traffic going the other way. A center turn lane also eliminates the bottlenecks of cars stopped in a travel lane while attempting to turn left. Study after study shows that is safer, more efficient — and also almost as fast, in particular with roads that match Drew’s traffic volume.
Other critics fear that traffic will simply shift to nearby roads. But the study shows that not really to be true. Those who oppose the project are putting up barriers based on what they fear or what they guess will happen versus what the state’s studies show will actually happen. Some even argued that rejecting the plan is really about safety; they claim that the reduced lanes would impede firetrucks and ambulances. But the state officials said the designs could easily accommodate those worries. The state transportation officials were clear that Drew Street is Clearwater’s decision, that they are simply looking at traffic numbers and crashes and suggesting solutions that work. At Clearwater’s request, they have studied the issue for years.
If the City Council rejects this project, the millions of dollars, mostly federal money, will go elsewhere in Pinellas County to make other roads better and safer. Viewed that way, perhaps Clearwater’s elected officials should reframe the question. If they vote this money down, crashes won’t magically decrease on their own. Those who claim they want a safer Drew Street, except that they don’t like this version, should have to explain how they expect to achieve that goal. And when someone is hurt or killed on Drew Street — that’s a when, not an if — what will they say when asked why they did nothing to make the road safer when they had the chance? That’s a fair question.
Editorials are the institutional voice of the Tampa Bay Times. The members of the Editorial Board are Editor of Editorials Graham Brink, Sherri Day, Sebastian Dortch, John Hill, Jim Verhulst and Chairman and CEO Conan Gallaty. Follow @TBTimes_Opinion on Twitter for more opinion news.
