Lee County has adjusted its safety improvement plan for Burnt Store Road.
Lee County staff will move forward with adding rumble strips and a four-foot paved shoulder as safety measures for the remaining two-lane section of Burnt Store Road without including the passing lanes in the previously approved plan.
The passing lanes were removed due to the estimated two-and-a-half years those lanes would require for additional drainage design and permitting from the South Florida Water Management District, officials said.
The approval allows the county “to implement more immediate safety improvements to the existing two-lane section of Burnt Store Road that could be achieved on a faster timeline.”
The rumble striping and shoulder work should start late this summer, as the Lee County Department of Transportation and Procurement Management can activate a paving contractor to conduct the work. Construction will take about nine months to complete.
The estimated cost is $140,000 for the rumble striping and $4.9 million for the four-foot paved shoulders with rumble striping. The distance is a little more than a mile from Van Buren Parkway north to Vincent Avenue.
Lee County Board of County Commissioners approved this direction last Tuesday.
Lee County DOT Director Rob Price said after the Board of County Commissioners approved the original plan on Jan. 20, county staff met with the South Florida Water Management District to seek a permit exemption for the work.
The most effective way to address lane departure is rumble striping as it would show correctable safety factors from 45-50% and an upwards of 30% when adding paved shoulders, he said.
“Activities that are eligible for a permit exemption are defined in Florida Administrative Code. The code provides for exemptions to an environmental resource permit for safety improvements provided that they do not add additional travel lanes,” Price said. “In the opinion of the district, passing lanes are added travel lanes, which will trigger the need for a full environmental resource permit (ERP).”
ERP permitting takes about 18 months to secure, in comparison to a 30-day permit exemption.
“The ERP will also require additional drainage requirements that we must design,” Price said, adding that in light of the time-sensitive nature of safety improvements, staff was asking for further direction.
The commissioners were given two options – move forward with the safety improvements as originally directed to include the rumble striping, paved shoulders, and the passing lanes, or to move forward with just the rumble striping and paved shoulders.
They chose the latter with Commissioner David Mulicka dissenting.
Mulicka said he appreciated the sentiment that everybody wants to do things as quickly as possible. He said he was originally a rumble strip only vote, but was persuaded to change his vote to do the full approach.
“I am not so quick of giving up two miles of turn lanes over permitting,” Mulicka said.
He said he liked the two-step approach – immediate safety benefit and then the big picture benefit to add extra lanes.
Commissioner Brian Hamman said he supported the second scenario, but also to move forward with the other improvements.
“I think the faster these get put on that road, the safer the road will be,” he said of rumble strips and a four-foot paved shoulder.
Price said because the county is in a Project Development and Environment study process with the state, the four lanes of Burnt Store Road would be grandfathered into the previous codes for drainage.
“If we do the passing lanes, we have to get an ERP now based on the current rules. That was not part of our PD&E. It jeopardizes our ability to use the older rules on the four laning of Burnt Store if we get an ERP on this section of roadway,” Price said of having higher level of drainage improvements and more storage in nutrient removal.
Mulicka said they waited so long to do so little in the stretch.
“We waited 40 years to get the last two out of the 10 miles to make four lanes to make it a tangible project,” he said.
Commission Chair Cecil Pendergrass said for every day that they do not do anything, there is the potential someone could lose their life.
“I think our intention always is to do some improvements to save a life and making driving improvements better,” he said.
Price said Burnt Store Road was a design build project.
“We are nearing any day now receipt of our design build criteria package, which deems the project shovel ready. Funding becomes available – we can award a design build project,” Price said, which would include 18 months to a year for additional design work to be done before actually turning dirt.
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