PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — On a beautiful day, people may want to visit Clearwater Beach, but drivers must keep in mind changes to a roundabout while on their way.
"That's causing driver confusion because people are expecting to go one way in that lane as they've normally done for decades, and now, suddenly, people are cutting over at the last minute," said Logan Crawford, who's from Dunedin.
Clearwater city officials said to improve the safety and traffic flow on and off Clearwater Beach, the city of Clearwater's Traffic Engineering Division will implement a traffic safety pilot program to test a new traffic pattern starting February 17.
The outside roundabout lane south of Mandalay Avenue will be forced to go south on Coronado Drive. However, drivers in the inner lane will still be able to exit onto Coronado Drive or continue in the roundabout.
"We've had some incidences where the inside lane and the outside lane have conflicts crossing over each other, so this is a pilot program to see if forcing that outside lane to go onto Coronado Drive south of Mandalay is going to improve the safety of that intersection," said Joelle Castelli with the City of Clearwater.
Castelli said the goal is to look at this in six months to see what worked and what didn't.
With the busy spring break season coming up, ABC Action News asked why the city wanted to start this change now.
"We decided to start it in February, give ourselves a good six months so we could see before the season, during the season, and then during some of summer, and see how it's going to change the flow into the other parts, and how it's going to change the flow for neighbors and residents that live in north beach," Castelli said.
On Friday, many people worked to figure out the pattern and tried to get used to something new.
"The traffic may build up on the left lane there back down Mandalay past the hotels. We'll see," said Brian Kennedy, who was visiting the beach.
Despite the change, some visitors want people to take it slow and enjoy the ride.
"We navigated it okay, but apparently, other people aren't," said Lisa Garst, who was visiting the beach. "You'll get there. It's okay! The what three seconds later? Ten seconds later? It's not worth getting the anger built up inside anymore."
