ALT ERNAT I VE S TO W I D E N I NG LITHIA PINECREST ALTERNATIVES TO SINGLE OCCUPANCY VEHICLE TRAVEL The County should plan for improvements to increase mobility choices, including improving accommodations for bicycle/pedestrian travel and working with HART to improve regional and local transit options. Enhanced Transit. HART has completed an assessment (Appendix I) of the potential congestion reduction benefits of a Park and Ride facility to the south and east of the study area. This facility has the potential to further reduce peak hour congestion through the Brandon community. The County should continue to work with HART and other regional partners to improve transit service serving local travel within the study area and connecting Brandon to major employment centers including Downtown Tampa, Westshore, USF, and MacDill Air Force Base. Improved Bicycle/Pedestrian Accommodations. Develop plans and priorities for sidewalk, crosswalk, and bicycle facility improvements along major corridors. Improvements could include mid-block crossings, refuge areas, adjustments in striping and signal timing, bike lane buffers and bike boxes at intersections, and other innovative strategies to address safety, limit exposure, and promote active transportation. Trail Connections. Identify opportunities for regional trail extensions along major corridors including Fishhawk Boulevard, Lithia Pinecrest Road, Lumsden Road, and others and improvements to existing trail facilities SAFETY AND TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT To improve safety and traffic flow along corridors throughout the study area, the County should explore implementation of the following improvements and traffic management strategies:
Access Management and Median U-Turns. The County should identify local arterials where the implementation of access management improvements may be appropriate to address safety and operational issues. Options to explore include converting two- way left turn lanes to medians and channelized lefts, converting full intersection openings to directional openings, and limiting driveways to right in, right out operations. These options could help to reduce the number of severe crash types like head on and left turning crashes. In addition, replacing left turn movements at intersections with median U-turns may reduce the number of crashes at intersections, while also providing improved operations. Speed Management, Progression, and Adaptive Signal Control. The County should identify arterials where advanced progression techniques and adaptive signal control can be implemented. These techniques can be implemented to slow vehicles and meter through traffic along congested corridors like Bloomingdale Avenue. Slower average speeds could result in fewer crashes, while metering traffic may reduce long queues and heavy congestion. Incident Response. The County should explore expansion of existing traffic incident management programs similar to Road Rangers and RISC, with the goal of accelerating response to and clearance of accident sites and incidents. Benefits of these programs include increased safety at the accident site, a reduction in secondary incidents, and reduction of accident duration. Roundabouts. Roundabouts are an effective intersection traffic control type that can provide improved operations and increased safety. By reducing the number of conflict points at an intersection and requiring yield conditions to enter the roundabout, the amount and severity of crashes at roundabouts is significantly reduced over more traditional intersections. In the right location, roundabouts can also reduce approach and intersection delay, as well as queue lengths.
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