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By Melody Jameson
mj@observernews.net
Balm — Persistence pays, they say, and there’s an improved intersection here that might be a case in point.
Melody Jameson photo
While quiet on a sunny winter weekday afternoon, this intersection in Balm at some hours was harrowing for drivers as vehicles approached from five directions simultaneously. The point where the Balm-Wimauma Road, the Balm-Boyette Road and Shelley Lane all intersect with C.R. 672, an industrial truck route, within a matter of yards has been made easier and safer to navigate through a cooperative effort involving citizens, Hillsborough roadway engineers and a county commissioner. Although the $70,000 project which reconfigured a portion of the intersection did not give area residents all that they wanted, they’re giving the recent changes a thumbs up.
For years, vehicles coming from five different directions have converged - and sometimes tangled — at the point where the Balm-Wimauma Road from the south the Balm-Boyette Road from the north and unpaved Shelley Lane all linked with two-lane C.R. 672 within a few yards. The only controls in place near the east-west truck route frequented by speeding industrial vehicles were a couple of standard stop signs — and whatever patience or judgment drivers mustered at the moment.
“Trying to get onto 672, quite literally, could become a matter of taking your life in your hands,” said Marcella O’Steen, president of the Balm Civic Association. Consequently, the small community group began campaigning for traffic controls more than two years ago, lobbying the county administration first for an overhead blinking caution signal in the intersection.
They haven’t gotten that, but the intersection has been reconfigured, making it easier and safer for the mostly local traffic to enter or cross the truck route. “It’s definitely improved,” O’Steen said this week, adding “It’s a cleaner, simplified intersecting of the traffic which just may save one or more lives.”
While a traffic study of the site did not justify lighted, overhead signalization in the intersection, subsequent engineers’ evaluations showed a roadway redesign would help, said Remy Ogunsola, a transportation engineer in Hillsborough’s Public Works Department. Engineers essentially eliminated the “Y” connection where the Balm-Wimauma Road met C.R. 672, creating instead a straightforward “T” and in the process providing more visibility for drivers merging west or eastbound into the truck route, he noted.
The work was completed in May, 2009, and cost about $70,000, said Mike McCarthy, the department’s traffic division director.
The civic association’s campaign began in October, 2007, O’Steen recalled. At the time, the citizens group wanted a lighted traffic warning control in the intersection. In response, county crews installed red blinkers atop the existing stop signs. Not convinced this measure was sufficient, in March, 2008, the association asked that the matter be reopened, with consideration given additional elements warning drivers of the dangerous intersection.
In a June, 2008, letter to Hillsborough Commissioner Al Higginbotham, whose district includes Balm, O’Steen pointed to the four-axle dump trucks hauling from the various borrow pits in the area including the Shelley Mine just yards south of the intersection, the phosphate rock haulers , the trash trucks aiming for the Southeast Landfill at the eastern end of the county road and the oil tankers, along with smaller vehicles, all moving at high speeds onto and along C.R. 672.
“Picture this: you are stopped at one of the three stop signs at this intersection,” she told Higginbotham. “And there are two more vehicles at the other two stop signs…also waiting to pull out…you motion to someone to go ahead of you….they don’t see you…who pulls out first?, she asked rhetorically. Then, she added, “ picture this scenario with you driving one of the school busses that use these roads….”
Ultimately, traffic and roadway engineers with a local consulting firm, along with county personnel took another look at the site, noting, among a number of items, a tight turning radius, passing zone issues, a lack of street lights, improperly installed stop signage, and a high degree of “shoulder rutting.” In addition, a crash analysis of accidents in the vicinity over a three-year period, 2005 through 2007, disclosed a total of 23, nine of them with injuries, Ogunsola said. That number around an intersection of that type exceeds the state average based on data compiled by the Florida Department of Transportation, he added.
The current fix is a “neat T intersection,” Ogunsola said, providing increased radius and enhanced safety. The next step, he added, probably would have to be “a major intersection change.”
O’Steen attributed the improvements thus far to the willingness of public works staff to investigate the site and to hear out the concerns of Balm residents. She also commended Higginbotham’s office for seeking help on behalf of the community. Although the exact traffic controls association members wanted in the intersection are not now present there, “the situation they’ve given us certainly is better,” she said. “And, we’ll continue to keep our county officials informed about it -- it’s still a tricky intersection.”
© 2010 Melody Jameson
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