{"id":39916,"date":"2023-12-07T13:02:52","date_gmt":"2023-12-07T18:02:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=39916"},"modified":"2023-12-07T21:36:39","modified_gmt":"2023-12-08T02:36:39","slug":"traffic-signal-months-away-from-installation-at-lakeland-intersection-where-teen-died","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2023\/12\/07\/traffic-signal-months-away-from-installation-at-lakeland-intersection-where-teen-died\/","title":{"rendered":"Traffic signal months away from installation at Lakeland intersection where teen died"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A traffic signal at an intersection A traffic signal at an intersection in Lakeland where a teenager died this week is months away from completion despite years of planning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHonestly I was not surprised because there have been several accidents there. It was just a matter of time before a child, in my opinion, before a child or an adult, whoever, crossing the street or needing to get across the street could have been injured or even killed,\u201d said Alex, who is a father of two young boys and lives in the Riverstone subdivision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There are 1,100 homes in the Riverstone subdivision located at the intersection of Medulla Road and West Pipkin Road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is the same intersection where a 15-year old boy, identified by his family as Jaxon Crabtree, died after being hit by a school bus on his way to school at Central Florida Aerospace Academy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHaving temporary lights there or something would be much better than the current situation,\u201d said Alex.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Polk County and city of Lakeland officials previously implemented the current setup with temporary barricades after complaints from residents about safety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat they currently have over there, a bunch of posts, reflective material, at night, when I\u2019m in my car, I can\u2019t even see oncoming traffic to make a left turn into my own neighborhood,\u201d said Alex<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2018, the developer of Riverstone, Atlantic Property Company, signed an agreement with the city of Lakeland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe developer shall be responsible for the signalization of this intersection, when a subdivision phase causes warrant to be met,\u201d the agreement reads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was signed by JD Alexander, as manager.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe ordered or signed the contract with the company that specializes in putting in those kind of things in I think it was March 9 of last year and it\u2019s just taken a long time to get the equipment in,\u201d said Alexander.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

He said the traffic signalization is his last remaining responsibility as developer of Riverstone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe contractor expects all the equipment to be delivered in February. Soon as that happens, I would guess by March it should be built,\u201d said Alexander.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jay Jarvis, Polk County roads and drainage director, confirmed with News Channel 8 that the delay was due to supply chain issues, not ongoing road construction projects on West Pipkin Road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe electronic equipment that is required to do those signals, the cabinets and those types of things are currently experiencing anywhere from a year to 18 months delay,\u201d said Jarvis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some residents have asked for a temporary traffic signal in the intersection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jarvis said it was discussed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUnfortunately a temporary signal is something that when you have controls and those types of things, you still run into the same issue as far as getting the equipment,\u201d said Jarvis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said the county will be having discussions about interim safety improvements that could be made at Pipkin and Medulla Road ahead of the traffic signal installation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou hate it for the family. You hate it for the young man. I\u2019m sure he was an outstanding young man. Most of those students, met a number of them out over at the aerospace academy, they\u2019re outstanding kids,\u201d said Alexander.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Accidents between 2019 and 2023:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  • 2019 \u2013 0<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • 2020 \u2013 3<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • 2021 \u2013 6<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • 2022 \u2013 12<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • 2023 \u2013 18<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    A traffic signal at an intersection A traffic signal at an intersection in Lakeland where a teenager died this week is months away from completion despite years of planning. \u201cHonestly I was… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39918,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[6979],"class_list":["post-39916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-traffic-signal-months-away-from-installation-at-lakeland-intersection-where-teen-died"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39916\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}