Beyond the construction barrier
BROOKSVILLE –
The other day, County Commissioner Jim Adkins said he was driving west on State Road 50 and saw a trailer with a boat scrape the side of the concrete barrier set up to direct traffic around the construction zone.
“I thought he was going to flip and lose everything,” Adkins said.
Adkins said he is getting many phone calls and emails from constituents saying they’re tired of having to navigate the road, especially when some drivers refuse to slow down and get on their bumper.
The barrier, which forces all motorists to converge into one lane, extends from just past Cobb Road to just east of Brooksville Regional Hospital.
Florida Department of Transportation officials are upgrading the road and put up the barrier about three months ago.
Adkins said this inconvenience “has been going on for a long time and it appears it will be going on for a lot longer time,” Adkins said.
Adkins said he never sees any work crews, which further frustrates him.
“You would think there would be more of an effort to take care of it,” he said.
For some reason, Adkins said there seems to be more emphasis on completing the sidewalk paths than the road.
For now, Adkins is referring all queries to the Florida Department of Transportation because it is a state project and the county has no pull to get the work moved along, he said.
FDOT spokeswoman Kris Carson said she hopes the barriers will come down in about one month.
The constant rains and damage wrought by Tropical Storm Debby slowed progress on that stretch of road, she said.
Crews had just started putting in sidewalks along the side of SR 50 but the tropical storm damaged them, forcing work to begin anew, she said.
“There have been a lot of weather issues,” Carson said.
Crews have also had more intensive work in the area encompassing the concrete barriers. They’ve dug down four feet to remove the clay base on the right westbound lane and are replacing it with sand.
Clay doesn’t drain well and caused drainage problems, forcing the upper asphalt layer to buckle, Carson said.
Once the base is rebuilt, crews will resurface the road
Carson said motorists should be cautious in the meantime while driving by the barrier.
The $4.2 million FDOT project started in April of this year and is slated to wrap up by January 2013. Despite the rain delays, crews are on target to meet that deadline, Carson said.
Ajax Paving Industries is resurfacing 3.9 miles of State Road 50 between Wiscon Road and Cobb Road. Also, repairs will be made to a section of the westbound outside lane and roadway shoulder between Citrus and Mobley roads.
Additionally, there will be new sidewalks and bicycle lanes along that stretch.
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