Apartment Choice

TAMPA — The long and dangerous dash across six lanes of traffic on Hillsborough Avenue in East Tampa should soon be safer to navigate. A new traffic signal just east of 22nd Street will begin operating in the next two weeks close to where two Middleton High School students were hit by a car two years ago. One sister was killed. The new signal, which cost $350,000, will be switched on next week in flashing yellow mode to give motorists some notice and will be fully operational the following week. It is located at the entrance to East Gate Plaza on the south side and Meridian Pointe Apartments to the north. At least four pedestrians have been hit by vehicles in this stretch of Hillsborough Avenue over the past four years, and three have died. None of the victims was crossing at a designated crosswalk. In the most recent fatality, 58-year-old Randolph Dunston slipped off the median near N...

Students continue to run across Hillsborough Avenue to school, despite several accidents. (Photo: WTSP) Tampa, FL -- A year ago this week, students who live at the Meridian Pointe Apartments at 25th Street and Hillsborough Avenue were being offered a shuttle bus to get to school. A reaction to the tragedy of a fellow student, a neighbor, struck and killed as she tried to dart across the busy road. The same area has been the scene of several pedestrian and bicyclist accidents. It happened again Friday, as once again, police and EMS units rushed to the scene of a person struck by a vehicle along Hillsborough Avenue. Marshall Brown says she watched in helpless horror as a little girl riding her bicycle tried to cross in the middle of the busy street – not at the crosswalk. She was clipped by a utility truck. The girl, knocked from her bike, was scratched but OK. This time. "Thank God, thank God," said Brown, "because look how big that truck is." BACKGROUND: 2 sisters...