- After going through city hall since 2018, Thomasville Road and Velda Dairy Road will get a traffic signal.
- Surveyors were in the area where Velda Dairy Road will be extended Tuesday and Wednesday.
- Watch the video to hear from a neighbor who are excited about the change and another who worries about what's to come.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
City leaders officially approved a plan to extend Velda Dairy Road across Thomasville Road.
David West lives in the area.
He tells me he has been following the changes here at the corner of Ox Bottom Road and Thomasville Road.
I've been tracking progress here for months. Watch my previous report below:
Now, a change is coming to that road that he worries will worsen traffic in his Killearn Estates neighborhood.
"That will put another avenue for people coming from Ox Bottom straight across go right past that light and now, they're at Kerry Forrest," West said.
He was talking about a plan to extend Velda Dairy Road across Thomasville Road to connect with Ox Bottom.
After talk of the project went on for 6 years, the city of Tallahassee has officially moved forward with designing and permitting the change.
It was originally proposed by a developer planning commercial and residential space on the corner of Ox Bottom Road and Thomasville Road.
It will add a stop light to the area less than half a mile from the stop light at Kerry Forrest Parkway.
"People coming from Bannerman who are going to work downtown, now they have yet another stop light they have to go through," West said.
City staff wrote in documents from March that the change aims to "divert from the overcapacity intersection of Thomasville Road and Kerry Forrest Parkway providing congestion relief to the area."
I looked at data from Leon County Sheriff's Office that shows there have been more than 100 crashes at that intersection and 6 at Thomasville and Velda Dairy from July of 2023 to now.
Neighbors like Steve Winn said they hope the change brings those numbers down.
"When you come out on to ox bottom to Thomasville Road, it's extremely dangerous. You can only make a right turn right now," Winn said.
I spoke with him when the project was brought before the commission in March.
He said he's happy to see progress being made.
"The sooner, the better," Winn said.
West said he doesn't think it'll pan out that way.
"We're talking about putting a stop light at the bottom of a hill, so that people coming south in the morning going to work, they suddenly get stopped at a stop light, that's going to bring them to a screeching halt," West said.
Permitting for this project is set to wrap up in November, making way for construction to begin before April 15.
