217: Laurel Road Redesign

The Sarasota area in southwest Florida has experienced a lot of growth in recent years, with many construction projects ongoing. One area included in this high level of growth is Laurel Road, in southern Sarasota County next to the City of Venice. There are many new construction projects planned along the road. Additionally, there is a school located here. The school, along with the developments, presents a traffic problem. The road was not built to handle the amount of people using it, so Sarasota County asked us to address this problem.

The road’s biggest issue was the intersection in front of the school. There was a large amount of traffic attempting to turn right into the school, but it lacked a separate right turn lane. Furthermore, a new neighborhood was planned across the street, and kids would need to travel across Laurel Road to get to and from school. We redesigned the intersection to address these problems. 

We added a right turn lane into the school and another leg to the north side of the intersection, as well as adding crosswalks. Further down the road, we noted the large amount of construction being planned along Twin Laurel Boulevard and the lack of a traffic light between Twin Laurel and Laurel Road. To address this, we added a traffic signal and crosswalks here, and added a right turn lane for the westbound side of Laurel Road. We believe these designs provide simple solutions to the problems at hand.