ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 The St. Petersburg transportation department has enhanced the crosswalk signals behind St. Pete High School after a student was struck by a car and critically injured while walking across busy Ninth Avenue North in late May.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe heard a lot of concerns from the community, the neighborhoods, the school district and others, just asking what we could do to enhance visibility as a short-term measure,\u201d said Transportation Manager Chery Stacks. \u201cKind of get it ready to go before school starts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stacks said crews installed double the amount of flashing lights, enhanced the lights color and moved all the signage up higher on the poles to make them more visible for drivers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s different is that the old signs were yellow,\u201d she said. \u201cThese are more of a yellow-green, a fluorescent color, which adds to the visibility as well. We typically use those in school zones because I think that helps.\u201d<\/p>\n
The last upgrades which will soon be added will be stripes on the poles and visors for the flashing lights, according to Stacks.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe typically use visors at traffic signals to aid in visibility of the lights,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019ve not traditionally done these and the flashing beacons because they\u2019re LED, but we think that those would also enhance the visibility.\u201d<\/p>\n
The improvements are part of the city\u2019s response to the community\u2019s safety concerns for students crossing Ninth Avenue North at 25th Street North and 26th Street North. A 15-year-old student who activated the lights was struck by a car while walking in the marked crosswalk and was critically injured on May 22, according to police. The driver remained at the scene and has since been ticketed for the accident.<\/p>\n
North Kenwood resident Kate Benoot said she walks her dogs across the street nearly every day and calls it \u201cvery unsafe to cross.\u201d Benoot welcomes the new upgrades.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust a couple of weeks ago, I was walking down here, I think, before they changed it, and the one (crosswalk signal) over there wasn\u2019t working,\u201d she said. \u201cSo it\u2019s a nice gesture. I mean, it\u2019s better than not doing anything, but we\u2019ll see if it works.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Stacks said that when pedestrians activate the crosswalk lights, it\u2019s important they wait for all traffic to stop before walking onto the road.<\/p>\n
Transportation and Parking Management Director Evan Mory said the upgrades were Stacks\u2019 idea, and it\u2019s the first time the full combination of enhancements has ever been used together in one place in St. Petersburg. Stacks said the city is also in the process of improving the area surrounding the crosswalk signals.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe trimmed the trees pretty significantly to enhance the visibility of the sign when you\u2019re coming down the street,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re also working on some sidewalk and ramp improvements, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Just in time for back to school which begins on Aug. 11.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 The St. Petersburg transportation department has enhanced the crosswalk signals behind St. Pete High…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358124,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[2967,2173,2175,4995,2968,115,596,277,15849,202,204,203,199,201,200,135,6390,2180,729,2177,835],"class_list":["post-359315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-app-public-safety","tag-app-traffic-transit","tag-app-traffic-and-transit","tag-crime-safety","tag-josh-rojas","tag-news","tag-pinellas-county","tag-public-safety","tag-school-safety","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-tampa","tag-topic-latest-public-safety-crime-stories","tag-topic-latest-traffic-transit-news","tag-traffic","tag-traffic-and-transit","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359315","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=359315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}