© Tampa Tribune, published October 21, 1999

Lower speed limit being enforced on Hillsborough Ave.

By SHERRI ACKERMAN

TOWN 'N COUNTRY - Improvements to a stretch of the roadway include a new speed limit and beefed-up patrols.

Sheriff's deputies are enforcing a lower speed limit this week along a stretch of Hillsborough Avenue where a mother and daughter were killed in a fiery crash last year.

It's the first step in a plan designed by transportation experts to make the road safer.

In July, the state Department of Transportation dropped the limit from 55 mph to 50 mph on Hillsborough between Sheldon Road and Silver Mill Drive.

This week deputies will begin a "vigorous enforcement campaign," said John Temple of the DOT.

In the next few months, DOT workers will redesign medians in front of the Colony Crossings Shopping Center, which will allow motorists to make a left turn into the shopping center, Temple said.

Work includes modifying a median opening in front of Publix at Elliot Drive to prevent motorists from making U-turns, closing the median opening at Mertens Street, and guiding traffic to Long Boat Boulevard, expanding the turn lane for U-turns there.

The design is the result of prodding led by residents who have lost loved ones in accidents. A Tribune article published in December counted six deaths on the stretch of road in the previous five years. Residents said traveling Hillsborough has become frightening, and that everyone knew someone who had - or almost had - been killed.

Leading the drive for change are Joan Landrum and Bruce Murakami.

Landrum's 15-year-old son, Mark, was struck and killed in 1994 while crossing Hillsborough Avenue just west of Elliott Drive.

Murakami lost his wife, Cindy, and 11-year-old daughter Chelsea in November, when their van was struck broadside as Cindy pulled out of the shopping center.

The pair have gathered 4,186 petitions calling for a traffic light, 45 mph speed limit and a cross walk.

DOT studies determined a light was not called for, and that a crosswalk - which would carry walkers over the road and is estimated to cost about $600,000 - wasn't feasible.

Landrum, who heads the Tampa Shores/Imperial Key neighborhood group, said she hopes to raise half the money, and persuade the state to match it.

Despite an engineer's report that the 55 mph speed limit was appropriate, transportation officials agreed to lower it, Temple said. And they will continue to monitor the improvements.

A recent study compared collisions at Elliott to the entrance to Publix and Longboat Boulevard, which has a light. Between January 1996 and December 1998, there were 44 collisions at Longboat, 21 at Elliott and eight at the Publix plaza, including the accident that killed Murakami's wife and daughter.

During a meeting last week with Landrum, Temple and county Commissioner Ben Wacksman, Murakami said the plan isn't all he hoped it would be. But it's a start.

"I'm satisfied they're doing something to make the road safer, absolutely."