Sumter County commissioners are ready to make a concession to two large churches in The Villages concerned about changes to a notoriously congested intersection on County Road 466.
Members of Fairway Christian Church and Hope Lutheran Church appealed last month to commissioners about the planned loss of a left turn lane to make way for adding other turn lanes on County Road 466 at Morse Boulevard, the community’s busiest intersection.
Documents prepared in advance of Tuesday’s Sumter County Commission meeting indicate their pleas have been heard. The commissioners will meet at 7 p.m. at Everglades Recreation Center.
An $863,604 contract was awarded in January to CW Roberts Contracting Inc. of Wildwood to add a second turn lane to westbound traffic turning south from CR 466 and a right turn lane for drivers turning north on Morse Boulevard. However, church leaders argued that this would create Sunday-morning bottlenecks when the large congregations enter and leave the parking lots on the north side of County Road 466.
Now, Sumter County is prepared to amend its construction contract to include an extension of the eastbound left-turn lane on County Road 466 at the median opening at the Santa Fe Professional Center to be 335 feet in length.
The County Road 466-Morse Boulevard intersection is a familiar scene of backups and accidents.
A study summarized five years of crash records at the intersection between Jan. 1, 2014 and Dec. 31, 2018 and identified 124 crashes. Of these 124 crashes, one resulted in a fatality, 25 resulted in one or more injuries, and 98 resulted in property damage only. The fatality that occurred was a westbound vehicle turning left in front of an eastbound vehicle during a permissive left-turn phase. The third most common crash that occurred at the intersection was a left-turn crash. Seventeen left-turn crashes occurred during the study period, with 11 of the crashes being westbound left turns in front of oncoming eastbound through traffic.