Port St. Lucie Police Chief John Bolduc anticipates cracking down on speeding on Crosstown Parkway after the new bridge to U.S. 1 opens this fall.
“Enforcement is the key strategy” for combatting speeding and aggressive driving, Bolduc told the City Council Monday. “That’s exactly what we have planned for the Crosstown when the bridge connects.” Speeding on the Crosstown Parkway is so bad, police issued twice as many speeding tickets on the six-lane thoroughfare as any other road in the city during the past four years, records show.
There were 602 traffic crashes on Crosstown Parkway between Jan. 1, 2014, and April 30, records show. Most of the traffic crashes occurred at major intersections during morning and evening rush hours, as would be expected, Bolduc said. So that’s when police target those intersections for traffic enforcement. “When we dug into the types of crashes that were happening on the Crosstown, 52 percent overall were front to rear collisions, 16 percent equally were side-swipes and angle crashes,” Bolduc said.
Angle crashes are associated with aggressive driving while side-swipes can indicate distracted driving, Bolduc said.
There were 132 crashes at the intersection of Bayshore Boulevard and Crosstown Parkway between Jan. 1, 2014, and April 30, records show. And there were 94 crashes at the California Boulevard intersection.
Police analysts determined the most common time for a crash at Bayshore and Crosstown is Friday between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m., Bolduc said.
The most common time for a crash at California and Crosstown is on Wednesday and Friday between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m.
There were 211 crashes since Jan. 1, 2014, at the intersection of U.S. 1 and Village Green Parkway, where workers are constructing the connection to the Crosstown Parkway Bridge over the North Fork of the St. Lucie River, records show.
The most common time for a crash is Wednesday between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m.
“I’m hoping the engineering improvements at that intersection will help a little bit,” Bolduc said. “I’m not sure though that it’s going to help with front to rear collisions. I really think that’s distracted driving.”
Bolduc said he would also try to tap into state and federal grant programs for money for a high-visibility traffic enforcement initiative. “There is no reinventing the wheel when it comes to traffic enforcement,” Bolduc said. “It is about getting the biggest bang for your buck by doing the data analysis and deploying your resources based on where the data says you need to go.”
Crosstown Parkway Traffic Crashes
- 2014: 78
- 2015: 97, 2 fatal
- 2016: 118
- 2017: 126
- 2018: 126
- 2019: 56, 1 fatal
(through April 30)
Top crash intersections on Crosstown Parkway, Jan. 1, 2014 – April 30, 2019:
- Bayshore Boulevard: 132
- California Boulevard: 94
- Interstate 95: 86
- Airoso Boulevard: 72
- Cashmere Boulevard: 70
Average daily traffic count on Crosstown Parkway segments in 2016:
- Interstate 95 to California Boulevard: 22,083
- California Boulevard to Cashmere Boulevard: 20,083
- Cashmere Boulevard to Cameo Boulevard: 20,667
- Cameo Boulevard to Bayshore Boulevard: 19,167
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