TEMPLE TERRACE — City Council voted unanimously Oct. 20 to add a fourth speed hump to address a longstanding issue with speeding on Sunnyside Road, rejecting a mini-roundabout and a reconfigured intersection that would have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars more.
The council chose “Option C” from five alternatives presented by Public Works Director Jason Warrenfeltz. It calls for a new hump at the south end of the corridor and permanent asphalt replacements for the three removable humps installed in 2025.
Staff put the cost at about $25,000.
Council budgeted $500,000 for the project in fiscal year 2026.
The vote ends a process that began years ago, when neighbors complained about speeding and cut-through traffic between Bullard Parkway and South Riverhills Drive. The road is scheduled for repaving, which gives the city a chance to add traffic calming.
The other alternatives included a travel-over mini roundabout at Shadow Lane, at an estimated cost of $311,000, and a T-intersection at Brentwood Drive, costing about $550,000, meant to remove a sweeping turn that lets drivers carry speed onto Sunnyside.
The City Council rejected both, as well as a do-nothing choice that would only repave the road.
Mixed signals from neighbors
An Aug. 19 neighborhood meeting only drew about 15 people. Warrenfeltz said 10 written questionnaires came back, and staff reported half favored the roundabout and T-intersection, and the other half favored a fourth hump.
However, Warrenfeltz and Temple Terrace Mayor Andy Ross said the written results surprised them, and what they heard from residents was different.
They agreed residents criticized the roundabout and T-intersection aloud, and the additional hump was the only idea everyone seemed to support.
Temple Terrace City Manager Carlos Baia, who lives in the neighborhood and said he can see the proposed roundabout site from his kitchen window, got the same impression from the meeting.
Temple Terrace council member James Chambers said he doubted the T-intersection would slow northbound drivers enough to justify the cost.
Fellow council member Alison Fernandez called the fourth hump the most effective use of the money.
Ross, meanwhile, questioned whether the city should be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars redesigning intersections to address speeding problems.
He described the roundabout as a “sledgehammer solution” and expressed similar reservations about changing the intersection at Brentwood Drive.
“Our city was laid out by our city fathers in 1924 or ’25,” Ross said. “We have a city filled with these kind of lazy turns and enters. I mean, it’s designed that way on purpose. So is Forest Hills. So is Carrollwood. It’s designed with meandering streets that come out at angles and stuff. It’s supposed to be like that.”
He wondered where such changes would end.
“If we’re going to get into the business of sharpening out intersections because of a sweeping stop sign turn, where’s that going to end?”
Stricter enforcement
Instead, Ross, who doesn’t want to see the city plastered with speed humps either, argued for stricter enforcement. While the city continues to add speed humps to neighborhoods and recently postponed a planned school zone speed camera program, speeding cars remain.
He suggested some of the $475,000 difference between the budgeted amount and the cost of selected improvements could be used to pay for police overtime and periodic, multi-day traffic enforcement efforts.
“Stop issuing warnings because they’re neighbors,” Ross said. We don’t like giving tickets, so we give warnings. It happens in my neighborhood. Well, give them $150 tickets or whatever it is, and do that every three months consistently. And when they run that stop sign, give them a ticket. I don’t care if they’re the neighbor that lives right there; they should know better.”
Ross said the city could do a lot of enforcement with the money it would otherwise spend on traffic calming.
“You can’t be everywhere, but we do have some money, and we do have a problem,” he said. “And I bet you, if we start writing people $200 (tickets) for speeding and running a stop sign…I mean, let’s start dinging people for this.”
No construction date was set for the Sunnyside Road improvements.
As for residents who might complain about stricter enforcement and receiving tickets?
“Give me that complaint,” Ross said.