Traffic fixes getting in gear

[HARTride 2012]

Its the latest news regarding the I-4/Crosstown Connector, CR 296 Freeway Connection to I-275, and yes...even the dreadfully controversial Gandy/Crosstown Connector. Its all here...
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Traffic fixes getting in gear
By MIKE BRASSFIELD, Times Staff Writer
Published September 4, 2007

Tired of traffic lights?

Transportation planners are, too.

They see two major gaps in Tampa Bay's freeway network, and they're now getting closer to plugging those gaps with costly new roads. Their goal: making it easier to get around Pinellas and Hillsborough counties by better connecting local expressways.

Relief is still years away. But this month, planning begins on a road that will allow drivers to go from the Sunshine Skyway to Dunedin without hitting a single stoplight.

And this week, highway officials will be plotting strategy for a road that will let drivers switch between Interstate 4 and the Lee Roy Selmon Crosstown Expressway without the stop-and-go of surface streets.

"These are key missing pieces of having an expressway-type ride through some congested parts of the region," says Bob Clifford, regional planning manager for the Florida Department of Transportation. "This will change travel trips dramatically, not only for commuters but for freight movement."

Plugging these gaps can be controversial. An elevated road between the Gandy Bridge and the Crosstown Expressway was killed because it was too expensive and neighbors fought against it. But the idea might be revived someday.

Here's a rundown of the bay area's future links, in order of when - or if - they'll be built.

Crosstown Connector

About 11,000 trucks come and go from the Port of Tampa every day, most of them rumbling through Ybor City on their way to I-4, the nearest highway. They jockey for position with cars on narrow lanes. They pass by the century-old Columbia Restaurant, rattling tables and shaking walls.

That will change once the Crosstown Connector is built, a job that will start in about two years.

A link between I-4 and the nearby Crosstown toll road - an obvious idea that has been discussed for two decades - is at last coming into focus. It will be a mile-long series of elevated bridges, including some truck-only ramps from the port. It will follow a railroad corridor beside 31st Street in an industrial zone east of Ybor's historic district.

"It's all bridge. It's one expensive daddy," says Steven L. Reich, who is just finishing up his tenure as interim director of the Tampa-Hillsborough Expressway Authority. He thinks the road is needed because, among other reasons, "If there's a big delay on I-4, it's not that convenient, unless you really know the back roads, to get over to the Selmon."

The Expressway Authority, which runs the Crosstown, will talk with bonding agencies this week about whether it can afford to chip in either $45-million or $125-million for the $484-million connector, in exchange for part or all of the tolls to be collected on it.

The state will build it starting in late 2009 or early 2010. It will probably open in 2013, says regional DOT secretary Don Skelton.

The short road has major implications for regional travel, Skelton says. Pinellas drivers will be able to bypass I-275 and get to I-4 via Gandy and the Crosstown. Drivers from Brandon, southern Hillsborough or farther south on I-75 will have a shorter trip to Tampa International Airport. Drivers on I-4 will have another way to enter downtown Tampa.

118th Ave. Expressway

Pinellas County is the Land of Traffic Lights. For a place with nearly 1-million people, it has remarkably few freeways. You can blame that on decisions made in the 1950s, '60s and '70s.

Now road builders are retrofitting U.S. 19 in mid Pinellas, adding overpasses over major intersections, turning it into a north-south freeway running up the county's spine.

The next big step: Transforming little-known 118th Avenue south of Ulmerton Road into a new expressway between U.S. 19 and Interstate 275, which will open an uninterrupted flow of traffic from the Skyway up to State Road 580 in the Dunedin-Safety Harbor area.

"It will make it so much easier to move north-south in the county," says Brian Smith, the Pinellas planning director. "There's always been this concern about how you get from north county and Clearwater down to St. Petersburg without getting hit with all the congestion and traffic lights."

When voters decided in March to renew the Penny for Pinellas sales tax for another decade, the biggest single chunk of money was earmarked for this project.

A whopping $70-million in sales taxes will pay for part of the work, which also will need state and federal money that isn't there yet. Smith guesses construction might start in five years or so but can't say for sure.

This month the state will pick a consultant to start designing the expressway. They'll figure out how much right of way it will need, which will affect how much it will ultimately cost, says DOT spokeswoman Kris Carson.

Gandy Connector

Heading out of Pinellas County on Gandy Boulevard, past the Derby Lane dog track, there are 5 miles of freeway and bridge - until you hit the Tampa stretch of Gandy, a congested business district where four stoplights sit between you and the Crosstown Expressway.

For regional traffic and hurricane evacuation, it's a bottleneck.

In 2002, the state proposed an elevated road from the bridge to the expressway. Local officials killed it, citing budget shortfalls and neighborhood opposition.

Instead, the DOT this month will take bids on a roughly $35-million project to do major improvements on the Tampa stretch of Gandy next spring - repaving and adding turn lanes, decorative lighting and landscaped 30-foot-wide medians.

Some business owners and residents around Gandy suspect those wide new medians are a signal that plans are still afoot for an elevated expressway down the middle of the boulevard.

"It's on our radar screen, but we certainly haven't taken any action," said expressway spokeswoman Sue Chrzan. "The first step would be to bring the issue to the community for input."

Gandy residents know something must be done about traffic, but they fear an elevated road will be ugly.

"It's a political hot potato," says Al Steenson, president of the Gandy Civic Association. "I don't know what the answer is. Whatever they come up with, it's going to be a long, drawn-out process."

Mike Brassfield can be reached at 813 226-3435 or brassfield@sptimes.com.

[Last modified September 3, 2007, 23:23:13]

http://www.sptimes.com/2007/09/04/Hi..._getting.shtml

[HARTride 2012]

First off, the I-4/Crosstown Connector will play a very crucial role in Tampa's transportation system by allowing traffic to access both expressways faster and keeping all the Port of Tampa traffic out of Ybor. By the time the elevated highway is done, IKEA should already be bustling with customers. I wonder if the connector will be tolled or not (maybe via Toll-by-Plate)? I doubt it.

Secondly, the CR 296 freeway connection in Pinellas will definitely take some load off Roosevelt, Ulmerton, US 19, etc. I hope FDOT will be able to get the funds together to build the rest of the freeway over the next few years. Then we'll see cars zooming from I-275 all the way through the Bayside Bridge.

Lastly, the next incarnation of the Gandy/Crosstown Connector is getting attention so it seems. My vision is to have an elevated structure similar to the Crosstown Elevated Reversible Lanes to be built in the median. The bridge would be two lanes with connections directly to the Gandy Bridge on the west end and the Crosstown and Gandy (and maybe Dale Mabry) on the east end. If FDOT can conjure up that type of structure, it really wouldn't look all that bad.

[HARTride 2012]

Opinions anyone???