A consultant team and Fort Pinellas staff presented a safety study for 49th Street on what the presenters called the county’s high-injury network, laying out 80 recommended countermeasures and a strategy to seek federal funding.

Adam Purcell, a city planner with AECOM, told the Board of County Commissioners that the study focused on two 2.5-mile segments of a longer 12- to 13-mile 49th Street corridor. "When I say 49th Street, that's about a 12 or 13 mile corridor from Gulfport all the way up to the Bayside Bridge," Purcell said, adding the study concentrated on segments selected for crash density and municipal boundaries.

The study, produced with Fort Pinellas and county staff, grew out of the 2021 Safe Streets Pinellas action plan and was supported by the federal Safe Streets and Roads for All competitive grant program. The project team said the report is intended both to identify short-term fixes and to support future grant applications for design and construction work.

Why this matters: the corridor carries high speeds, substantial pedestrian and transit activity and a concentration of serious-injury crashes. Purcell said the study identified 858 crashes in the roughly 2.5-mile study area during 2019–2023. "The predominant crash type in the area was a rear end crash, which accounted for about 50% of those crashes," he said; he added there were about 47 crashes classified as fatal or resulting in serious injuries and 49 involving bicyclists or pedestrians. The study separated contributing factors and emphasized that pedestrian- and bicycle-involved crashes are overrepresented among the most serious collisions in the northern study area.

Key findings and context

- Crash totals and severity: The project team reported 858 crashes within the 2.5-mile study area for 2019–2023, about 47 fatal/serious injury crashes and 49 crashes involving bicyclists or pedestrians. Purcell said rear-end crashes were the most common (about half of all crashes), while angle and left-turn crashes made up about 25% of total crashes but accounted for over half of fatal and serious-injury crashes in the southern focus area.

- Pedestrian and bicyclist risk: In the northern study segment, Purcell said bicycle- and pedestrian-involved crashes represented roughly 7% of total crashes but about 52% of the fatal and serious injury collisions, making the north segment a priority for pedestrian and bike safety countermeasures.

- Speeds and volumes: The team’s speed study found the 85th percentile speed more than 5 miles per hour above posted limits in sections of the corridor. Presenters said average daily traffic volumes are in the thousands (the study reported current volumes and modeled future growth toward 2045), and the corridor was characterized as an important truck and evacuation route. The northern study area also showed heavy transit activity—about 600 boardings per day within the project’s one-mile study area, the team said.

- Community engagement and field work: The team said it conducted an online community survey (nearly 100 responses), a public workshop and roadway safety audits with FDOT, law enforcement, fire rescue and local leaders. Purcell said survey respondents cited aggressive and distracted driving as top concerns and also highlighted pedestrians and bicyclists crossing at unprotected locations.

Recommended countermeasures and near-term steps

The team matched site conditions to nationally recognized, peer-reviewed safety countermeasures from federal sources and the Crash Modification Factor Clearinghouse. Recommendations included:

- Access management in the southern focus area to reduce conflict points that produce left-turn/angle crashes; suggested median realignment and consolidated access where feasible.
- New or upgraded pedestrian crossings, including pedestrian-actuated full-stop signals (HAWK-style devices) rather than passive flashing beacons at midblock crossings, given 40–45 mph speeds in places.
- Improvements to signal visibility and operations (backplates, signal timing, lead pedestrian intervals), extension of left-turn storage where needed and targeted drainage and lighting upgrades.
- Transit-related actions: bus pull-out bays in the northern focus area to reduce conflicts caused by buses stopped in travel lanes; the northern study area was identified as having high transit ridership and available public property that may permit bus pull-outs.
- Bicycle accommodations where feasible (painted high-visibility bike lanes and targeted maintenance); fully protected bike lanes were generally constrained by right-of-way in the southern segment.

The team emphasized constraints: right-of-way is limited in the southern study area where business frontages and parking limit the ability to add outside improvements. Purcell told commissioners the study considered implementable countermeasures that do not require extensive additional feasibility work.

Timing and implementation

The report breaks recommendations into short-term (under 12 months), mid-term (1–5 years) and long-term (over 5 years) implementation windows. The presenters said some short-term items already are being implemented: the county has contracted with Duke Energy to convert existing streetlights to LEDs, and staff have altered signal controllers to enable lead pedestrian intervals at key intersections.

The presenters said the final report of recommended countermeasures would be available to the commission later in the month and was intended to help the county prepare competitive grant applications under the federal Safe Streets and Roads for All program.

Board response and issues raised

Commissioners questioned specific elements of the study: whether business owners had been included in outreach, how existing and future traffic volumes would affect the viability of a road diet, and the feasibility of consolidated bus pull-outs given limited right-of-way in commercial sections. Commissioner Shearer asked whether lane reductions were recommended; Adam Purcell said a road diet was evaluated but was not recommended because projected future (2045) traffic volumes and the corridor’s designation as a truck and evacuation route made lane reduction impractical in many sections. Commissioner Nowicki and others pressed for clarification on transit stop-related crashes and whether bus pull-outs were feasible in the north while the south remained constrained by fronting businesses.

No formal action was taken at the workshop. Staff and the consultant said they will deliver the final study and are prepared to brief commissioners on design and funding next steps.

Ending

The study team said the corridor study provides the technical foundation and community input the county would use to pursue federal safety grants and to prioritize engineering and maintenance projects along the 49th Street corridor. The final report, they said, will list the 80 countermeasures in detail, including recommended timelines and potential costs for design and construction.