GreyHawk Landing traffic signal may get green light

Although she has lived in GreyHawk Landing for two weeks, Anu Patel is concerned about the location of her new home.

She said the intersection of Greyhawk Boulevard and State Road 64, which is the main entrance to the community, is dangerous.

"There's a fast speed limit, 60 mph, and people still drive faster than the limit," said Patel, who was looking at her daughter, Suhana. "My daughter will be starting kindergarten at Freedom Elementary in the fall, and I know that intersection will be so busy and even more hectic during the morning hours."

Patel's concerns should be addressed soon. The Florida Department of Transportation will decide within a few weeks whether to install a traffic signal at the busy intersection.

FDOT is currently reviewing a study it conducted over the last two months to determine whether the community's main entrance warrants a signal. Signal surveys are conducted between January and March, which FDOT marks as the busiest times of year for traffic in Florida.

Zachary Burch, the Government Affairs and Communications manager for FDOT, said there are nine ways for an intersection to qualify for a traffic signal, but three criteria are most important.

Officials study crash history, the total number of vehicles per hour that drive through the intersection and the amount of time drivers are delayed at the intersection.

Crash analysis doesn't include numbers on rear-end crashes. FDOT researches "angle crashes," such as someone getting hit from the side.

"(Rear-end) accidents are called correctable," Burch said. "We're more interested in T-bone crashes, where someone is trying to get on to 64, they don't have enough time and someone hits them from the side. We shouldn't have those kinds of crashes happen."

To qualify, intersections must have at least 105 vehicles pass through each hour over an eight-hour timeframe.

Some delay is expected, but to wait one minute or longer is considered above the average of 40 seconds, Burch added.

Residents contacted Rep. Greg Steube in December about the need for a traffic signal. Two months later, on Feb. 2, a 73-year-old GreyHawk resident, John Hughes Frye, was hit and killed by a driver while he was walking across the intersection.

Since the accident, 700 GreyHawk residents signed a petition to have a light installed. That caught FDOT's attention.

Resident Lindsey Wilson and her friend and fellow GreyHawk resident, Debi Romano, helped orchestrate the petition. 

Wilson said she is tired of waiting long periods of time to make a turn out of the community when she leaves for work around 8 a.m.

"I just want to avoid the front entrance," Wilson said. "People are driving so fast and there's so much traffic. A traffic light would hopefully slow them down."

Ken Weaver is among the minority of residents who didn't sign the petition.

Weaver said the push for the light is happening now because of Frye's death. He doesn't know whether the intersection is busy enough to warrant a traffic light.

"What caused all this was someone walking into the road and not seeing an oncoming car," Weaver said. "I don't know that we really need a light. There are probably thousands of communities that think they need a traffic signal."

Burch said he gets several calls each year from residents who ask for traffic signals near their communities.

"That’s one of the things we’re here for, our No. 1 priority is safety," Burch said. "Signals aren’t necessarily an improvement to an intersection. They are used to efficiently move traffic. We're willing to do surveys, because were residents who drive through these interchanges, too. If there's a problem, we'll look at it."