{"id":372517,"date":"2026-08-15T20:44:25","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T20:44:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/372517\/"},"modified":"2026-08-15T20:44:25","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T20:44:25","slug":"pine-hills-road-projects-aim-to-improve-safety-for-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/372517\/","title":{"rendered":"Pine Hills road projects aim to improve safety for students"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"margin: 0.5rem 0; line-height: 1.6;\">ORANGE COUNTY, Fla.\u00a0\u2014 FDOT is working to finish safety improvements along Silver Star Road in the Pine Hills section of Orlando as students return to school, including projects intended to make it safer to cross near Evans High School while keeping traffic moving.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0.5rem 0; line-height: 1.6;\">The work comes after a 2019 FDOT pedestrian safety study identified Silver Star Road as a high-crash corridor. From 2022 through last year, there were 22 crashes involving pedestrians and bicyclists along Silver Star Road from Homestead Road to Princeton Street, according to FDOT.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0.5rem 0; line-height: 1.6;\">FDOT said two people were killed in 2025.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0.5rem 0; line-height: 1.6;\">About 33,000 vehicles use the stretch of Silver Star Road each day. John Littles, owner of Triple J Window Tint, lives near the busy road with his son, Jayden, and said crashes are common in the area.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0.5rem 0; line-height: 1.6;\">\u201cThere&#8217;s always crashes either on this side of the fence or the other side of the fence for some reason,\u201d Littles said.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0.5rem 0; line-height: 1.6;\">Littles said crossing Silver Star Road can be difficult, especially for people trying to get to Evans High School.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0.5rem 0; line-height: 1.6;\">\u201cThat wouldn\u2019t be my option to walk across the street,\u201d Littles said. \u201cI get in my car before I try to cross the street.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0.5rem 0; line-height: 1.6;\">FDOT is\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cflroads.com\/project-files\/688\/445696-1.-2_SR_438_Display_Boards_5-16-2023%20REM.pdf\" style=\"color: #0066cc; text-decoration: none;\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">redesigning five intersections along Silver Star Road<\/a> near Evans High School. At Le Harve Boulevard, crews are adding a traffic signal, a diagonal crosswalk and a larger pedestrian island in the median.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0.5rem 0; line-height: 1.6;\">FDOT hopes the restricted crossing U-turn, or RCUT, design will improve pedestrian safety while also helping traffic continue to move. According to the Federal Highway Administration, signalized RCUT intersections can reduce travel time by up to 40% and accommodate about 30% more vehicles.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0.5rem 0; line-height: 1.6;\">The Federal Highway Administration also says the design reduces vehicle-to-pedestrian conflict points from 24 to eight.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0.5rem 0; line-height: 1.6;\">\u201cIt\u2019s a step, you know, to pull back into the community trying to make it safer,\u201d Littles said. \u201cAt least it\u2019s something.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0.5rem 0; line-height: 1.6;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cflroads.com\/project\/445696-2\" style=\"color: #0066cc; text-decoration: none;\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Changes at Le Harve Boulevard<\/a> are expected to be finished by this fall. Improvements at Dardanelle Drive, including a new crosswalk, are also expected to be completed by the fall.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0.5rem 0; line-height: 1.6;\">Three more projects along Silver Star Road are not expected to see improvements for a few more years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORANGE COUNTY, Fla.\u00a0\u2014 FDOT is working to finish safety improvements along Silver Star Road in the Pine Hills&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":372518,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[767,2178,770,2179,2176,115,139,141,140,729,835],"class_list":["post-372517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-app-community","tag-app-traffic-inbox","tag-community-news","tag-inbox","tag-jerry-hume","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-traffic","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372517","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=372517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/372518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}