Hillsborough installs ‘bike boxes’ to make roads safer for bicyclists

Beth Rousseau
·2 min read
4

HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. (WFLA) — A new feature at some Hillsborough County intersection aims at making roads safer for bicyclists. The county is among the top in the country for pedestrian crashes.

“Both pedestrian and bike crashes are about 70% of our crashes involving serious injury or deaths involving intersections,” explains Transportation Engineering Manager Bob Campbell. “In terms of pedestrian death rates, we’re currently number two as far as the 11,000 counties in the United States,” he says.

Man charged in Tampa dog park shooting to find out if he’ll be granted bail

According to data from Florida Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, there were 602 bike crashes in Hillsborough in 2023, 15 of the crashes were fatal. County leaders are installing ‘bike boxes’ at some intersections as a safety solution.

“We need things, methods and techniques to control human behavior and this is a human behavior type thing. Drivers see, drivers slow so we have to design roads for people that make bad decisions. That’s what we do in our designs,” describes Campbell.

The green area painted on the side and in front of intersections allows cyclists to safely move in front of drivers and make a left hand turn in front of other cars. This prevents them from the more dangerous alternative of using the outside left turn lane.

A list from the county shows intersection that are top priority for safety improvements due to the number of crashes. The top three are Waters Avenue and Hanley Road, Gunn Highway and Linebaugh Avenue, and Bruce B Downs Boulevard and Cross Creek Boulevard. Hillsborough leaders say they’ll consider installing ‘bike boxes intersections if the infrastructure is already in place on both roads.

The intersection of Sheldon Road and Citrus Park Drive is one of a handful of areas where they’re already installed the new technique. According to Campbell they’ll install more of the ‘bike boxes’ in early 2025.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFLA.