• After passing through City Hall since 2018, Thomasville Road and Velda Dairy Road will receive traffic lights.
• On Tuesday and Wednesday, surveyors were in the area where the Velda Dairy Road is being extended.
• Watch the video to hear the opinion of one neighbor who is happy about the change and another who is worried about what is to come.

TRANSCRIPT OF THE MISSION:

The city council has officially approved a plan to extend Velda Dairy Road across Thomasville Road.

David West lives in the area.

He tells me he has been watching the changes here at the corner of Ox Bottom Road and Thomasville Road.

I've been following the progress here for months. Check out my previous report below:

Construction work on Thomasville Road, Velda Dairy, leaves people excited about what's to come

Now a change is coming to this street that he fears will lead to further traffic deterioration in his Killearn Estates neighborhood.

“This creates another opportunity for people coming from Ox Bottom to drive right past the traffic light and they're at Kerry Forrest,” West said.

He talked about a plan to extend Velda Dairy Road over Thomasville Road and connect it to Ox Bottom.

After six years of discussing the project, the City of Tallahassee has now officially begun planning and approving the change.

It was originally proposed by a developer planning commercial and residential development at the corner of Ox Bottom Road and Thomasville Road.

This will add a traffic light in the area less than half a mile from the traffic light on Kerry Forrest Parkway.

“People coming from Bannerman and driving downtown to work now have to go through another traffic light,” West said.

City staff wrote in March documents that the change was intended to “detract from the congested intersection of Thomasville Road and Kerry Forrest Parkway, thereby relieving congestion in the area.”

I looked at data from the Leon County Sheriff's Office that shows there have been more than 100 crashes at this intersection from July 2023 to present, and six at the Thomasville and Velda Dairy intersection.

Neighbors like Steve Winn said they hoped the change would lower those numbers.

“When you get to Thomasville Road on Ox Bottom, it's extremely dangerous. You can only turn right at the moment,” Winn said.

I spoke to him when the project was presented to the Commission in March.

He said he was pleased with the progress made.

“The sooner the better,” said Winn.

West said he didn't think it would turn out that way.

“We're talking about putting a traffic light at the bottom of a hill so that people driving south to work in the morning suddenly stop at a light and screech to a halt,” West said.

The permitting process for this project is expected to be completed in November so that construction can begin before April 15.