Issue link: https://newsleader.uberflip.com/i/273295
Siesta Seen Last week, Lauren Hatchell, a public informa- tion officer for FDOT, explained to me that the prohibition on right turns on red at that intersection — which has been in effect only about three weeks — had prompted so many complaints that department engineers already were taking another look at the situation to determine what the next step should be. FDOT made the change after hearing com- plaints from pedestrians who reported nearly being run over by vehicles whose drivers had looked left before making the right turn on red but who never looked to the right, and therefore did not see people crossing the road until it was almost too late. Patterson said during the board meeting that "a lot of upset people" had contacted her about the vehicle backups occurring since the right-on-red prohibition went into effect. For that matter, she said, on Saturday night, March 1, traffic on Beach Road was bumper-to bumper. "The traffic was stopped." Anne Johnson, who represents Fresh. PR & Marketing Inc. at the SKVA meetings, told that group just hours earlier on March 4, "As I sat in that traffic yesterday [on the Stickney Point Road bridge], I was thinking that DOT runs the bridge openings. I would think they'd get complaints from those bridge [tenders]. How do you ever —" Work proceeded this week on the new Sarasota County maintenance facility in the area between the site of the new stormwater pond and the public beach. Photo by Rachel Hackney Sarasota News Leader March 7, 2014 Page 114