The money will address congestion on U.S. 19 in Pinellas and link I-4 with the Lee Roy Selmon Crosstown Expressway in Hillsborough.
By JEAN HELLER
Published August 5, 2003
ST. PETERSBURG - The state will spend $70-million in the next five years to ease two of the biggest traffic headaches in the region, congestion on U.S. 19 in Pinellas County and a missing link between the Lee Roy Selmon Crosstown Expressway and Interstate 4 in Hillsborough County.
The U.S. 19 project would give drivers a 13-mile signal-free shot from 118th Avenue in Pinellas Park to just south of Curlew Road in North Pinellas. It calls for a long new overpass between Whitney Road and State Road 60, along with completion of similar overpasses at Drew Street, Coachman Road and Sunset Point Road.
The project also would correct a confusing frontage road configuration on the west side of U.S. 19 just south of State Road 60.
In Tampa, the state will build a connector expressway in the area of 32nd Street that will link the Crosstown with Interstate 4. It would provide another route into downtown for drivers coming from Pinellas and enable those drivers to head further east on I-4 without encountering Malfunction Junction, the busy intersection of Interstates 4 and 275.
The new link also would enable motorists to reach the Port of Tampa without using surface roads in Ybor City, and provide an expressway from east Hillsborough to the West Shore area and Tampa International Airport.
The two projects are part of a $150-million package put together by Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Jim Sebesta, R-St. Petersburg, and Ken Hartmann, the state Department of Transportation secretary for District 7. Most of the money will be spent in the next five years.
In an era of tight state budgets, Sebesta wrote legislation that allows the state, for the first time, to issue bonds that would be paid off from tolls on the Sunshine Skyway and the Pinellas Bayway for the design and construction of other new road projects. The law requires that the money be spent on major projects in the counties served by the toll roads.
Also in the planning stages is a U.S. 19 overpass at 118th Avenue, which will eliminate one traffic signal from the new Bryan Dairy Road connector to I-275.
"We're getting at the two major projects this area most wanted," Sebesta said, adding that the connector should be welcomed by Ybor City and one of its oldest businesses.
"Those of you who know Ybor City, and particularly those of you who know the Columbia Restaurant, will be glad to hear that the connector will get heavy truck traffic going to and from the port off 22nd Street," Sebesta said.
Hartmann said that all the projects would be under way, and some completed, by the end of the decade.
Turning U.S. 19 in mid Pinellas into a signal-free expressway eventually will cost in excess of $500-million. Carrying through from Curlew Road in North Pinellas to the Pasco County line will cost at least another $500-million, Hartmann said.
"And that doesn't even begin to take into consideration what we'll have to spend to fix U.S. 19 in Pasco," he said.
Pinellas County Commission Chairwoman Karen Seel said she is happy that the projects will go forward.
"I'm delighted that we've been able to bring the dollars in to make the improvements," Seel said. "That's what we're here for, to make the roads safer."
