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Accident-Prone Median Is 1st To Get Safety Makeover

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By CARL ORTH

The Suncoast News

Published: September 21, 2008

PORT RICHEY - Pasco County has compiled its most wanted list - of dangerous intersections on area roads, that is.

The Ridge Road median at Sterling Lane recently saw changes after it ranked No. 1 in a survey of accident-prone corners in the county.

Embassy Boulevard is up next for improvements in the block between Little Road and Morehead Lane.

Pasco County engineers teamed up with the Florida Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration for the road safety audits to review conditions at 10 high-crash locations. After public workshops in April, county commissioners gave the go-ahead in June for the Ridge and Embassy upgrades.

A traffic signal was deemed impractical at the T-intersection of Ridge and Sterling, since a traffic light already exists at Ridge and Regency Park Boulevard about 1,000 feet away. So the redesign of the median was determined to be the way to go.

The Ridge Road median used to allow drivers to make left turns from Sterling onto eastbound Ridge, or let motorists make U-turns on Ridge.

In engineer-speak, the median had 6.8 angle crashes per year, according to Pasco's Crash Data Management System.

In other words, the "full median" used to let traffic crisscross Ridge in just about any direction. Cars darted to and from a gasoline station on the corner.

All that changed when the open median was closed, replaced in effect with a left-turn-only lane for eastbound vehicles.

Engineers call it "channelization" or a "directional median."

Some landscaping was removed, as well, to improve visibility.

Drivers westbound on Ridge no longer can turn left into the median or make U-turns there.

Southbound drivers on Sterling who stop at the corner no longer can dart across to the median to turn left onto eastbound Ridge. Only right turns from Sterling are permitted now to head west on Ridge.

The changes didn't cost all that much.

In the case of Ridge Road, construction amounted to $26,120, according to a June memo by James C. Widman, Pasco's engineering services director. FDOT helped design the project and provided $19,120 in materials. The county provided signs, pavement markings and labor.

Crews used a kind of curbing that is bolted into the pavement to form turn lanes, rather than pouring concrete that would be much more expensive.

The Ruskin-based firm Qwick Kurb Inc. markets its namesake product used for the Ridge median.

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