What's Wrong With This Picture?
This is the intersection of West Palmetto Park Road and Judge Winikoff Road, viewed from the southwest corner (Publix parking lot). See if you can figure out what’s wrong with the picture. If not, keep reading.
In the above picture you can see crossing guards and crosswalks. This photo was taken Friday morning while students are arriving at Loggers Run Middle School (which is on the southeast corner, or to the right of the picture).
What you can also see, if you look closely, is the school zone sign reducing the speed limit to 20 mph. It’s in the far right of the above picture.
The key here is this: For cars traveling eastbound (from Boca Falls and Boca Winds toward 441), the school zone starts after the crosswalks where children cross the road.
See the picture below:
Let’s look at this on a satellite image (thanks to Google Maps):
The red circle shows where the school speed zone sign is. The red arrow represents cars traveling eastbound on Palmetto (from Boca Winds and Boca Falls, heading toward 441). They cross two crosswalks at Winikoff with the 45 mph speed limit on Palmetto. It’s only after they cross those crosswalks that the speed limit drops to 20 mph.
We have school zones to protect children who are “outside or crossing the street.” There are no children crossing the street between Winikoff and Ponderosa. Most of the kids are crossing at Winikoff.
So wouldn’t it make more sense to have the school zone start where the blue circle is?
We should note that for cars traveling westbound (from 441 toward Boca Winds and Boca Falls) the school speed zone ends about 100 yards west of Winikoff, well after the cars have passed through the crosswalks.