Palm River

Residents say road plan lacks turn sites

People living along Causeway Boulevard tell highway planners they will have trouble turning left if more median gaps aren't added.

When Cris Barrington got a look last week at the Florida Department of Transportation's plans to widen Causeway Boulevard, she had one big complaint.

There weren't enough places, she said, for residents and business owners to make a left turn onto Causeway.

Her solution?

"I'm going through the median," she said. "I've got a truck, and that's what the truck is going to do."

She may have been kidding, but she wasn't alone in her criticism. More than 130 people gathered Oct. 16 at Crosstown Community Church in Palm River to examine the $42.8-million plan to widen Causeway to four lanes by 2008, and many had the same complaint.

"People who live here are going to have to make U-turns," said resident and landowner Norman McMahon.

The project will stretch 3.2 miles, from U.S. 301 to U.S. 41-50th Street. It will include new street lights, bicycle lanes and sidewalks, a new railroad crossing just east of U.S. 41, and new traffic signals at U.S. 41, 78th Street and U.S. 301.

The road is a major connector between Brandon and Tampa, and many trucks use it to get to the Port of Tampa. But it is still a relatively secluded and residential area, causing those who live and work there to worry whether the road's new grassy median will slow them down, said project manager Lynda Crescentini.

"The community is concerned with having four lanes - two eastbound, two westbound - and then the divided median," Crescentini said. "They feel the value of their property would be more if they had a median opening at their driveway location."

A turn lane that stretches the length of the project is one solution proposed by residents, but Crescentini said the 13 or so gaps currently planned for the median would be safer.

She added that it's possible the state may reconsider the locations of its gaps in the median, depending on public demand.

"It's a balancing act, really," she said. "You can't put one every 5 feet."

Aside from complaints about the median, residents agreed for the most part that the road improvements were necessary.

Causeway has an average traffic count of 21,500 cars a day, Crecentini said, but the capacity for just 16,400. The new road will have a capacity of 35,400, easily enough to handle the expected daily traffic count of 26,100.

Despite her reservations over the median locations, Barrington said the widening would be a huge improvement.

As the road is now, "from about 3:30 p.m. until 6:30 or 7 p.m., you're going to be backed up to about U.S. 301 heading east," she said.

Right of way land acquisition, which will cost Hillsborough County and the state more than $22-million, is scheduled to begin in fall 2004. Construction will begin in summer 2006 and last for two years.

- Jay Cridlin can be reached at 661-2442 or cridlin@sptimes.com