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Relief For Big Bend's Danger Zone

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By SUSAN M. GREEN, The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 21, 2007

RIVERVIEW - The jockeying usually starts just before sunup.

The hopefuls pull onto Big Bend Road with their headlights on, ready to angle for a place in line, their digital car clocks beaming the time in the waning darkness.

Some ignore their clocks and wait patiently for a break in traffic. Others make a mad dash across lanes, hoping the brakes will come from oncoming motorists. More often, someone makes a mistake.

On the verge of being dubbed a failure, Big Bend isn't forgiving. Flashing lights, blocked travel lanes, radio traffic advisories, tardy slips for students and dirty looks from the boss all become chapters in the Big Bend story.

Sometimes the consequences are far worse.
Sandra Boyd of Riverview can't shake her memories of a morning crash in March that claimed the life of a 9-year-old boy. She pulled up behind the wreck at Interstate 75 and held two other injured children until help arrived.

"It was a mess," Boyd recalled. "It was awful. ... It's a really bad intersection."

Boyd grew up in the area, graduating from East Bay High School in 1975. The Big Bend of her youth carried far fewer cars, but Boyd has adjusted her lifestyle to accommodate the changes. She said she leaves her home an hour before she's due to work, even though the trip should be a 15-minute drive.

"I drive it every day," Boyd said of Big Bend. "There's almost an accident a day."

Statistics back up that observation. From October 2006 to October 2007, the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office investigated at least 112 accidents on Big Bend. During the same period, the Florida Highway Patrol investigated 161 wrecks in the vicinity of Big Bend and U.S. 301 or Interstate 75, for a total of 273, or more than one for every weekday of the year.

A county report from August showed the stretch of Big Bend between I-75 and U.S. 301 is close to exceeding the road's capacity of 38,300 trips a day. Intersections along the roadway from U.S. 41 east to Summerfield Boulevard are listed at level of service E or F - failing or near failing. Officials at recent transportation planning meetings have said Big Bend is expected to soon become a failed roadway.

More traffic is on the way. On the drawing board is a 1 million-square-foot open-air mall and 250-room hotel to be built on Big Bend's south side just west of I-75. The developer has predicted the project will generate more than 32,000 daily trips for Big Bend, or almost double the current traffic, according to studies submitted to the county.

A 5,000-home subdivision, Waterset, has begun construction in Apollo Beach, and two others, Belmont and Ayersworth Glen, have broken ground near County Road 672 and Big Bend. Two health-care companies are competing for state approval to build a hospital near Big Bend and U.S. 301. And a large warehouse and distribution center is expected to break ground soon at Big Bend and U.S. 41.

Problems Mount With Traffic

In the past three weeks, at least seven wrecks have occurred on Big Bend, all demonstrating some known hot spots: the northbound access ramp to I-75, in the median break at Lincoln Road and in front of East Bay High School.

Gloria Rubin of Riverview has noticed a growing problem for motorists making left turns in the late afternoon and early evening since restaurants opened at Big Bend and Lincoln a year or so ago. Cars pile up in the median cut, waiting to turn onto Big Bend or cross the four-lane road.

"It's like nonstop traffic, and there's no stop sign, no nothing," Rubin said, adding that she and her husband travel Big Bend from U.S. 301.

"It's a dangerous, dangerous intersection," she said. "Someone's going to be killed."

Although she likes the restaurants, she dreads the trip.

"You gotta pray you're not the one that gets into an accident that day," Rubin said. "I'm a nervous wreck when I go there."

Another evening rush-hour problem occurs when traffic backs onto I-75 as commuters head home to booming subdivisions such as Summerfield Crossings, Covington Garden, Kings Lake and South Fork.

Others point to the northbound access ramp on the east side of the overpass. A long line of vehicles forms each weekday morning, sometimes stretching east to Simmons Loop, waiting to turn left across westbound traffic to drive onto I-75.

Observers generally agree that growth in the area led to traffic snarls, but some have different opinions on when it all started.

Sharon Morris, principal at East Bay High School, has worked at the school for 25 years and remembers when I-75 came through the area in 1982. She said some of her associates who have lived and worked in the area even longer point to the interstate's opening as the time when traffic on Big Bend started to build.

Morris said she started seeing traffic affecting the school in more recent years. Parents complain about congestion and problems getting in and out of the campus.

"I think as more houses have been built near here, there has been more traffic," Morris said. "People aren't used to the traffic."

Among significant problems, she said, is a U-turn configuration off Big Bend Road onto Old Big Bend Road, the original two-lane highway that runs in front of East Bay and its neighbor, Eisenhower Middle School.

Traffic is regulated by a signal, but motorists who run the light create a higher hazard than usual because of the configuration, Morris said.

"It's going to become dangerous," she said. "I think we're going to have to look at where they students and parents enter onto old Big Bend Road."

Motorists can access the smaller road at Simmons Loop, Lincoln and Kings Lake Drive.

State and county officials say help is on the way, though most of it won't come soon.

The Florida Department of Transportation has authorized a traffic light to be installed at the northbound access ramp to I-75, where the child was killed earlier this year.

Lights And Pavement Coming
Big Bend also is on track to get bigger, though the earliest widening could start is probably a year away.

Bob Campbell, transportation director for Hillsborough County's Planning and Growth Management Department, said widening of the road between U.S. 41 and I-75 is expected to begin in a year or so, thanks to agreements reached with residential developer Newland Communities and Duke Realty Corp., the developer of the warehouse and distribution complex at the northwest corner of U.S. 41 and Big Bend.

Two health care corporations, St. Joseph's Baptist Health Care and HCA, recently obtained rezoning to build a hospital on Big Bend between U.S. 301 and I-75. The two are competing for state approval to start construction.

Charles White, Hillsborough's transportation review manager, said conditions of rezoning for the respective sites call for possible road widening and installation of a traffic signal. If St. Joseph's is successful in its bid, he said, the traffic signal would go in at Lincoln. If HCA builds a hospital, the light would be installed at Simmons Loop, White said.

He said it's too soon to say what improvements may be required of the open-air mall developer. County and state transportation planners and engineers are reviewing traffic studies submitted by the developer, he said, and the next step would be discussions of ways to offset the anticipated effects of additional traffic.

State transportation officials have said they have learned from traffic problems associated with a regional mall built in Brandon, now called Westfield. The state is expected to require entrances that are far from interstate access ramps to avoid traffic backups on the high-speed highway.

Reporter Susan M. Green can be reached at (813) 865-1566 or sgreen@tampatrib.com.

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