An intersection in southwestern Columbia County may be getting an overhaul after all.
More than two years after the Florida Department of Transportation scrapped plans for proposed improvements at the State Road 247 (Branford Highway) and County Road 240 crossing following public concerns about the proposal, FDOT is pitching a revised plan to make the intersection safer.
The Columbia County Commission will discuss whether to support FDOT’s plans at its 9:30 a.m. meeting Thursday at the Keith Hudson Auditorium, 372 W. Duval Street.
“With the skewedness, the crashes keep happening,” Cody Ko, FDOT’s traffic safety program engineer, said Tuesday, noting that a number of serious injury accidents have occurred at the intersection.
FDOT’s proposed plans, according to a Jan. 14 draft image, would realign the intersection with a westbound right turn slip lane on CR 240 as well as a southbound right turn lane offset on SR 247. Lighting would also be added to the intersection.
There is no timeline currently for when the improvements would begin.
According to the proposed improvements, in addition to the right turn slip lane on westbound CR 240, that roadway would be reconfigured as it approaches the intersection, which currently is at a skewed angle, rather than 90 degrees.
Ko said that is the main point of emphasis with DOT’s ongoing efforts to improve the intersection, to make it safer for traffic.
“The main problem at that intersection is the skewedness of that intersection,” he said. “The sides of traffic can’t see the oncoming traffic with the acute angle and stuff like that.”
Eastbound CR 240 traffic, coming from Suwannee County, would veer slightly to the right similar to the current right turn lane. There it would meet a realigned roadway where a vacant field current sits on the southeastern side of the road. The westbound right turn slip lanes as FDOT calls it, would continue along the current path of the roadways according to the plans.
The improvements also include additional signage as well as blinking red lights with the stop signs on CR 240. Blinking yellow lights would also be added on either side of SR 247 as traffic approaches the intersection.
Ko said Tuesday that if FDOT moves forward with the current plan, land acquisition would still need to occur in order to realign the roadway.
In 2023, FDOT initially put forth a plan to improve the intersection through a hybrid offset T intersection that veered the CR 240 traffic in both directions to the right. Traffic wishing to remain straight on the road — under that plan — would have had to turn left onto SR 247 before immediately turning right back onto the county road.
Public concerns at an open house led to that plan being scrapped.
“We’ve been checking out any other options,” Ko said. “When the previous project was dropped, we know the people wanted direct access, nothing like offset T or anything like that could happen.”
But DOT officials said then they still aimed to make safety improvements at the intersection. Designers had also previously considered installing traffic lights at the intersection but there was not enough traffic on CR 240 to warrant that change.
Ko said Tuesday that engineers also looked at the possibility of installing a roundabout at the intersection. However, he said there would have had to be a lot of land acquisition in order to made the roundabout wide enough to handle the speed of the traffic on SR 247.
“I believe that some people would not like that either,” Ko added.