HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 Neighbors in a south Hillsborough County community are asking for safety improvements at U.S. 301 and Willow Road, saying increased traffic, long waits and past crashes have made it difficult to get in and out of their neighborhood.<\/p>\n
Willow Road is used by several communities to access U.S. 301 along a stretch between Sun City Center and Parrish. Residents of Little Manatee Springs, a retirement community off U.S. 301, said they have been trying for years to get changes made, including the possible installation of a traffic signal.<\/p>\n
For 25 years, Roy Rowand has called Little Manatee Springs home. He said the area has changed significantly during that time.<\/p>\n
Now, during busy times, he says drivers can wait several minutes just to turn onto U.S. 301.<\/p>\n
\u201cMorning rush hour, evening rush hours, evening traffic \u2014 you have to wait 5-10 minutes just to pull out,\u201d Rowand said.<\/p>\n
Neighbors said their concerns go beyond delays. They said the community has dealt with several crashes over the years, including some that were deadly.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou feel awful,\u201d said Carol King, a Little Manatee Springs resident. \u201cBecause it\u2019s scary every time you come and go. You are thinking of those incidents and this traffic out here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Residents also said turning into the community can be difficult because that stretch of U.S. 301 has only two lanes and no turn lane. Rowand said he sometimes pulls to the side of the road while waiting to make a turn.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I stayed in the lane to make a left-hand turn, I\u2019d either get rear-ended or hold up traffic,\u201d Rowand said.<\/p>\n
The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) said it plans to conduct a signal analysis in the area. FDOT said it will study traffic counts to determine whether a traffic signal would help and plans to wait until school is back in session to get a more accurate count.<\/p>\n
Rowand hopes that leads to some change there.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe feel like a forgotten community,\u201d Rowand said. \u201cJust need some help. Getting in and out of this park.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 Neighbors in a south Hillsborough County community are asking for safety improvements at U.S.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":346235,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[274,2173,2175,2178,2179,115,135,137,136,7227,278,729,2177,2032,835],"class_list":["post-346234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-app-top-stories","tag-app-traffic-transit","tag-app-traffic-and-transit","tag-app-traffic-inbox","tag-inbox","tag-news","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-tim-wronka","tag-top-stories","tag-traffic","tag-traffic-and-transit","tag-trending-topics","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346234\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}