One of Lakeland’s most dangerous intersections might owe its reputation to a design flaw, not driver error

Ryan Lazenby, the city’s civil engineering manager, told Lakeland officials the staff has taken a hard look at Sleepy Hill Road and Kennedy Boulevard, just north of Lakeland Square Mall, and realizes the roadway needs to be completely redesigned.

“Our traffic engineering department contacted us and said we’re seeing a number of crashes at that intersection the recent five years,” he said at Friday’s city project update meeting.

Lazenby said the city’s traffic department found one fatal accident and at least two crashes resulting in serious life-altering injuries have occurred at Sleepy Hill and Kennedy.

The fatal accident occurred when a driver’s vehicle careened into one of the trees along the intersection median.

“You can see the tree is all scarred up, it’s been hit multiple times,” he said.

Lazenby said the city’s engineers were asked to look at the geometry of the intersection, as they often do, to assess whether there were problems with the roadway’s design.

“Ninety-nine percent of the time we take a look at that and it’s not the geometry, it’s other factors: speeding, DUI, and things like that,” he said. “In this case, there is a significant issue.”

This time, city staff have found the roadway’s design is flawed, Lazenby said. It fails to meet the requirements of Florida’s Greenbook, which lays out minimum design standards for the design, construction and maintenance of roads.

For drivers traveling east, Lazenby said there’s actually a “reverse curve” so the roadway’s median directs motorists to the north before they follow the natural curve of the road on a southward trajectory to continue east.

As drivers travel east on Sleepy Hill Road through the intersection, they are actually put in a direct alignment for collision with the trees in the median.

The city’s staff have started a redesign of Sleepy Hill Road’s turn, Lazenby said. The funds for this are covered in the city’s current fiscal budget.

Lakeland staff will seek out various grant opportunities to pay for future reconstruction. Overall, Lazenby said the project’s estimated cost is more than $1 million.

Commissioner Mike Musick asked what changes will be needed to alter the roadway.

Lazenby said the road’s turn radius and the super elevation of the road will need to be changed. Super elevation is the slope or pitch of the roadway when vehicles enter a curve. Lazenby gave the example of the banks on the Daytona speedway track, so professional drivers don’t fly off the track.

Sleepy Hill Road, while not designed for the Daytona 500, still needs to have a bit of a super elevation, or slope, to help keep drivers on the roadway instead of sending them into the trees or utility poles.

There needs to be some super elevation added to the travel lanes in both directions on Sleepy Hill Road for it to better serve motorists, Lazenby said. Currently, there’s none.