- Florida Department of Transportation says there have been 7crashes at the intersection of Highway 27 and Rich Bay Rd. in 2 years.
- Turning lanes will be added at the intersection to keep neighbors safe.
- Watch the video to hear from neighbors and see what's planned for the roads.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
On the intersection of Rich Bay Road and Highway 27, car accidents have been happening and neighbors here want a solution.
I’m Ashley Engle your neighborhood reporter in Havana. Many of you have reached out to me about this issue, and I wanted to find out answers on what leaders are doing to bring the number of crashes down.
Crashes are happening that could be prevented.
"The traffic has really increased going from 27 both going from northbound and southbound on to Rich Bay."
It's a problem Trish Yahn has noticed in her neighborhood.
She says the ideal solution is for people to slow down but, "but they're not going to do it most of the time."
A lot of people who live and work in Havana or Tallahassee take Highway 27. Many of those neighbors also travel on Rich Bay Road and turn onto Highway 27. The problem?
“I think it's a combination of no turn lanes, the speed and more traffic going into rich bay road.”
Florida Department of Transportation’s data shows between January 1, 2022 and December 31, 2023 there were 7 crashes at this intersection. One was deadly.
As for the causes, FDOT includes operational error, wet roadways, headlight outages and speeding.
"It’s not always the intersection sometimes we want drivers to be as safe as possible and we can’t always control what people do behind the wheel."
Neighbors like Trish have contacted me about the issue, and they want to see changes made at this intersection.
"I really believe we need a longer turn lane for the right-hand turn coming northbound and we really need a south bound turn lane from 27 to rich bay road."
And that change is on the way. FDOT says they are designing a right turn lane and a south bound left turn lane at this intersection.
Lindsey Harrell with f-dot says getting to that change is a process.
"One of the things we will look at is crash data, what kind of crashes happened at that intersection or roadway. Level of service, how many years it's been since it's been resurfaced and things like that."
Now that a solution is in the works, keep in mind, "there’s always going to be accidents everywhere but having those turn lanes will mitigate the problem a lot by having those two turn lanes."
FDOT says they do not have a specific date on when construction is going to begin at this intersection. We will let you know when dates are released.
