Citizens Against Road Restrictions

1).    Every Speed Hump delays the Fire Department and Paramedics by 10 seconds by their input.

         That means that some of us have to wait an additional 80 seconds to get help.  The ones with fires will just fret about it.  The ones with heart attacks might never know!

2)      NTC manual (June 2003): Collector Roads are not eligible for this program.  The first sentence of the conclusion of the Lutz NTC June 27, 2003 revised states: The Lutz Neighborhood Traffic Calming consists of four collector roadways: Crenshaw Lake Road, Crystal Lake Road, Simmons Road, and Crooked Lane.

3)    Citizens living in this corridor of “Collector Roads” were not allowed to vote on solutions for streets that they must travel on to leave the neighborhood.  The county specifically stated that the “Hearing Master”, an independent county contractor (not the county nor the citizens), had made the decision that only citizens within their designated affected area for each street could be polled.  Yet, in the end remedies for streets that were not voted for implementation received remedies.  (Speed limits were revised on all streets in the area per the Lutz NTC final recommendation regardless of citizen’s desires).  Many citizens in the public hearings strongly recommended that the polling area be modified to include all the citizens that have to drive on these streets to leave the neighborhood.  Additionally, there was a request on the floor of the hearings that the polling area be combined since all resident on affected streets were impacted.  The County blatantly denied this request during the public hearings and created four (4) separate project areas (the fifth, Van Dyke, was added as a request from some at one of the hearings- not according to the procedure).

4)    Speed limit was changed on Crystal Lake Road as a result some citizens’ input at one of the hearings.  The NTC Manual (section 6.0) specifically states that emergency procedures must be certified by the Sheriff or as supported by traffic studies. Neither was followed in this case.  When brought to the attention of the NTC coordinators at county offices, they stated that they could change the speed limits any time they wanted.

5)    “Speed Cushions” were not defined, described, nor included in the “Toolbox of Solutions” provided by the county consultant TBE Group. “Speed Cushions” did not exist in county engineering documentation when the County Commissioners approved the plan.  When asked about the potential applications, remedy description, advantages, and disadvantages the TBE Group representative simply stated that they were similar to Speed Humps in their affect on slowing traffic. Follow-up to this question to provide specific information to match that on the TBE Group “tool box” document went unanswered. The County did not until March 24, 2007 have any engineering drawings for such devices.  When pressed, The County finally created an engineering drawing and as a result, removed and reinstalled said “Speed Cushions” on two separate occasions causing The County undefined removal costs and at least $16,000 additional monies to reinstall said “Cushions” two more times than should have been necessary.  A key point here is that “Standard Speed Hump” per county engineering drawing (appendices to the NTC Manual) states:  “Threshold for use 1. Average Daily Traffic (ADT) <= 3,000”.   Similarly, “Standard Speed Table” engineering drawing from same appendices states: “Thresholds for use 1. Average Daily Traffic (ADT) <=5,000.  The actual traffic counts per county study pre-NTC on Crenshaw were 7,802 weekdays and 5,202 on weekends.  This is obviously over the limits for these devices to be approved for installation. The County approved and installed these devices regardless.

6)    Citizens were told at the hearings that installed devices humps, tables, etc) would be able to be crossed at 20 mph yet warning signs installed on Crenshaw Lake Road state a speed of 15 mph.  These “Speed Cushions” are so steep and short (severe) that most cars must almost completely stop to transverse them.  The posted speed limit is 30 mph and cannot be maintained in this area.  This causes an unnatural congestion of traffic many times during the day both on weekdays and weekends.  These “Speed cushions are more severe than the speed humps installed in residential communities that have lower speed limits and are not thru streets.

7)    The County proceeded with the Lutz NTC “Hearing Master” recommendations even though there were many citizens publicly opposed to such severe solutions. The final recommendation document lists commentary from the second public hearing where citizen’s input was requested on the proposed solutions.  While some citizens did not voice their opinion about the specific recommendations, the citizens who did voice 21 were for speed humps and 31 were against speed humps.  Those inputs were ignored and The County went ahead with “their” plan.  This whole process should have been stopped or significantly modified as a result of the second public hearing, but was not.  It appears that The County had a different agenda.  (This document is currently not on the county website!)

8)    Van Dyke Road was added as a project without the official requisite minimum of ten signatures per Step 1:Initiation in the NTC Manual. This road was added by the Hearing Master per an at-large comment by someone at the first hearing.  That is not a result of the official process that is documented.  There is no official petition for this road. The provisions of the plan were however applied to that road (reduced speed limit).

CARR TOP 8 ISSUES   Red=Issue ; Black = Evidence