Forward Pinellas, the county’s planning and transportation agency, has released the results of a pilot aiming to improve driving behavior along one of its busiest roadways.
The organization made a long stretch of Park Boulevard in Pinellas Park the focus of the pilot, from west of 71st St to east of US 19.
Park Boulevard is part of the county's High Injury Network [HIN], which only represents about 3% of the county's roadways, while accounting for about 40% of its traffic crashes.
"In the short term, we did see people were slowing down, they were changing their behavior a little bit. But the minute that the law enforcement presence was gone, everyone kind of went right back to speeding the way that they typically did beforehand.”Chelsea Favero, Forward Pinellas
The pilot placed a geofence around some of the road, which would serve as a virtual zone. People driving through the area would have their phones pinged between June and September of 2022, asking the device users to complete a safety survey later in the day.
The pilot also included extra speed enforcement from local police in that stretch of road. The goal was to see if the additions would change driver behavior.
After looking through the study’s findings, Chelsea Favero with Forward Pinellas says the extra safety reminders did not result in major changes.
"In the short term, we did see people were slowing down; they were changing their behavior a little bit,” Favero said. “But the minute that the law enforcement presence was gone, everyone kind of went right back to speeding the way that they typically did beforehand.”
Observations from the pilot found that the segment of Park Boulevard around 44th St N was one of the areas where people were most likely to speed.
It also found a slight decrease in the numbers of crashes per 100 million vehicle miles of travel when compared to the prior five-year average, along with a slight increase after the pilot was completed.
“Overall, we generally conclude that the targeted educational outreach and enforcement has some benefit, but it does not appear to have resulted in lasting change in travel speed or crash outcomes on Park Boulevard,” the study reads. “This finding is consistent with national and international research that shows education alone is not effective in changing collective driver behaviors as driver speed is influenced by a variety of factors.”
However, Favero still believes that is a crucial takeaway from the pilot.
“We can do all the education, we can do all the enforcement, we can do all the engineering we want to,” Favero said. “Unless we do them all together as part of a coordinated strategy, we're not going to see the improvements and the changes that we think that we should be seeing in our transportation network."
She says to make significant changes to driver behavior on some of Pinellas' most dangerous roadways, it'll take a consistent effort of educating, engineering and enforcing traffic safety from multiple entities to make noticeable improvements.
Favero also says the pilot showed the value of geofencing, with more than 4,500 people taking part in the safety surveys.
Other roadways along the county’s HIN include multiple stretches of US 19 and SR 693, some of Seminole Boulevard, Bay Drive, and more.
“They're big, they're wide, they have a lot of traffic, and that traffic is moving at a high rate of speed,” Favero said. “That's kind of the perfect mix for these very severe crashes.”
Forward Pinellas recently received a $600,000 grant from the federal government, which it will give to five municipalities — Gulfport, Largo, Oldsmar, Dunedin, and Pinellas County — to pinpoint potential safety improvements in each community.
