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Hyde Park neighborhood calling for help with accident-prone intersection

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Posted at 9:05 PM, Jun 15, 2022
and last updated 2022-06-15 23:36:40-04

TAMPA, Fla. — If you're driving in the Hyde Park area near South Albany Avenue and West Platt Street—then you may have noticed some signs warning drivers about the dangers ahead.

"Lot of traffic comes down Albany [avenue] and obviously down Platt [street]," said Jorge Acosta.

Acosta says his daughter put up the signs after seeing so many accidents at that intersection. She also provided pictures of two crashes that happened in March and May of this year. According to the city of Tampa, there's been at least 14 recorded accidents there in the last 18 months.

Wynne Pomeroy has lived in this neighborhood for ten years and says she wouldn't be surprised if the number of accidents was actually higher.

"There's been many accidents at least once a week between this intersection on Platt [street] and the one on Cleveland [street]. So it just depends on the day, the night," she said.

Both Pomeroy and Acosta say it seems most of the issues stem from speeding, people missing the stop sign at the corner, or people driving the wrong way on West Platt street—which is a one-way street.

And we asked them what needed to be done to make things safer.

"I think that intersection needs to be marked better, stripes to tell people where to stop, flashing stop signs, everything, and anything," said Acosta.

"I feel like this is a cut-through street, everybody comes from Kennedy [blvd] all the way down to Swann [ave] so if they could avoid that. Even speed bumps, something," said Pomeroy.

And they say they hope something is done before something more serious happens.

"Somebody could be in danger of losing their life," said Acosta.

The City of Tampa tells ABC Action News that they're looking into concerns at this intersection. And some solutions they're considering are to make street signs easier to see, re-striping the lanes, re-thinking street parking in that area, and looking at ways to make sure people are driving at a safe speed.