FDOT To Evaluate Safety Of Nine Mile Road, Beulah Road Intersection

May 10, 2023

The Florida Department of Transportation is evaluating the safety of the Nine Mile Road and Beulah Road intersection.

Following a fatal crash April 28, Escambia County requested FDOT conduct the comprehensive evaluation, citing ongoing citizen complaints and the number of wrecks.

In an email to the state, Escambia County cited two NorthEscambia.com stories — the April crash that killed an Alabama woman and a November two-vehicle wreck that injured five people. Both crashes, according to Escambia County, were due to eastbound drivers that were turning left that traveled into the path of a westbound driver, perhaps due to limited sight distance.

According to the Florida Highway Patrol, there have been 44 crashes in the area of the intersection in the last couple of years.

FDOT is expected to review and take other steps including a look at signal timing and lane alignment.

Both Nine Mile Road and Beulah Road are state maintained roads and outside county control. In 2019, the county approved a road swap, trading part of the county’s Beulah Road to the state for part of Perdido Key Drive.

Escambia County gave 2.5 miles of Beulah Road from Mobile Highway to Isaacs Lane to the Florida Department of Transportation. In turn, FDOT gave Escambia County  6.2 miles of Perdido Key Drive from the Alabama state line to Gongora Drive.

An April 28 crash at the intersection of Nine Mile Road and Beulah Road claimed the life of an Alabama woman. NorthEscambia.com reader submitted photos and photos courtesy WEAR 3 for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.

Comments

15 Responses to “FDOT To Evaluate Safety Of Nine Mile Road, Beulah Road Intersection”

  1. David on May 12th, 2023 9:44 am

    I cannot count the number of times that I have driven Beulah and Nine mile road without the first difficulty at the intersection. Nothing wrong with the intersection, what is wrong is the lack of attention on the part of some drivers.

  2. Guy on May 10th, 2023 9:20 pm

    Y’all are right…people are dumb and we shouldn’t try to make safety improvements.

  3. Brian on May 10th, 2023 8:31 pm

    It’s hard to believe these expert drivers that comment about how the intersection is not to blame have ever traveled through this unaligned mess of an intersection. If you let drivers turn left without a clear line of sight due to the misalignment combined with grade elevation then the odds are that someone will miscalculate. Put up some left turn signals to take human error out, and align the lanes.

  4. J Fowler on May 10th, 2023 5:13 pm

    Everyone always complains about road width, lights, sight distance, intersection angle etc etc etc…. The fact is drivers are more more distracted everyday and pay less attention to traffic everyday…. no matter what they do crashes will continue to increase. The drivers with common sense who pay attention are aging out and the new ones coming along are idiots who have zero common sense and can’t put their phones down.

  5. Beulah Resident on May 10th, 2023 4:22 pm

    Lane alignment is off from south Beulah Road across the Nine Mile Road going north. HORRIBLE.

  6. C on May 10th, 2023 1:49 pm

    Too many road ragers and speeders we need more police presence.

  7. Unknown on May 10th, 2023 11:57 am

    I am a member at ECFR Station 2 in beulah. That intersection is not even a quarter of a mile from the station. There isn’t a problem with the intersection. A variety of a accidents caused in this county are not by the intersection but by how the drivers drive. The state has these certain rules for the roads, but alot of drivers don’t use them wisely. It is highly encouraged to use those rules that you see on the road to be safe. Please drive safely

  8. John on May 10th, 2023 10:22 am

    God bless the volunteer firefighters who show up to all the accidents there!

  9. John on May 10th, 2023 10:20 am

    God bless those volunteer firefighters who show up to every accident there and save lives!

  10. Henry Coe on May 10th, 2023 9:50 am

    Another thing that happens with people turning left is they see they have a green light and ignore or don’t realize that they do not have the right of way to oncoming traffic from the opposite direction.
    Besides the safety issues, that intersection needs a bunch of help to deal with the North/South traffic on Beulah Rd especially on the Publix side. Beulah Rd needs to be four laned with additional turn lanes on the Publix side and the I-10 interchange with Beulah Rd needs to be build to relieve 9 Mile Rd traffic.
    Something also needs to change on Beulah Rd in regard to buses and having it 4 or 5 laned would help a lot with trash day traffic.
    What ever we do I hope they under plan any new construction so we can do all this again in 10 years, because that’s our way in Escambia County.

  11. Beulah on May 10th, 2023 9:40 am

    The entire stretch of 9 mile rd from hwy 29 to Beulah rd and portions of the new 29 at the interstate needs to be reviewed. What a night mare ! Who ever engineered/ Designed this project should be fired. One example is trying to leave Vallarta restaurant and trying to get on 9 mile to go north on 29. Another is trying to leave the the TomThumb at Beulah and 9 mile. U turns have become a commonality along this newly created maze of non sense! Lastly Beulah rd is now the new Davis Hwy. with the explosion of new homes, it’s time for the State of Florida to fund the Beulah/Interstate inter-change your light years behind already!

  12. Beth on May 10th, 2023 9:39 am

    There are numerous intersections and lane changes all over Escambia County that look like a kindergarten age child designed! You gotta drive defensively at all times!!

  13. Fact checker on May 10th, 2023 8:24 am

    Again, as I’ve said in the past, this intersection is another example of incompetent planning and design. There are no red arrows to keep drivers from turning into oncoming traffic. And if you’re east bound on 9 mile and want to turn left onto Beulah rd, you can’t see westbound traffic if someone is in the opposing turn lane. Why? Because they are offset. Look at how many years and deaths it took for the state to install a simple guardrail at the I-110 – I-10 interchange. Someone signs off on this crap !

  14. LouLou on May 10th, 2023 7:44 am

    Sorry to be a doubting Thomas but, you can do all the studies you want but you can’t fix stupid. People just need to and should be paying attention when driving period. But y’all know people don’t. So wishing you all luck and safe travels to where and when on highways. It was one of the main reasons I moved away from the area I was born and raised in, the traffic from so many people was more than I could handle…lol

  15. J.Larry Seale on May 10th, 2023 7:39 am

    you can’t fix stupid drivers…..
    drivers just pay attention to the lights………..