Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
New money will help solve old problems.
That is the prudent message under the list of projects, released Tuesday, that details how the county will spend $72.7-million earmarked for road construction if voters approve the so-called Penny for Pasco in March 2004.
It is a significant point. Before the county drafted its project list, critics contended the money would be used to build new roads simply to enhance and accelerate development. They are wrong.
Because little impact fee money is generated in areas already developed, increasing the sales tax from 6 to 7 percent will help to fix roads in highly urbanized west Pasco and in other congested locations. Many of west Pasco's houses pre-date the county's transportation impact fee, first levied in the mid 1980s.
Coinciding with the sales tax plan is a separate measure to increase the county's transportation impact fee by almost 50 percent, to approximately $3,300, to build $257-million worth of new highways, mostly to serve fast-growing east and central Pasco. That impact fee ordinance is expected to be considered sometime early next year.
Tuesday afternoon, commissioners received their first official look at the Penny for Pasco road spending. Most notable is $13.3-million worth of median modifications to control traffic on U.S. 19, and $22-million - the most expensive road project under the sales tax plan - to rebuild the interchange at Interstate 75 and County Road/State Road 54 and to widen SR 54 to six lanes beneath the interstate.
Fixing that mess is long overdue. Traffic backs up from the interchange in both directions, even though the state attempted to mitigate the congestion by adding turn lanes on the former SR 54 several years ago.
The unsafe conditions on U.S. 19 are well-documented. Commissioners designated that road their top priority in seeking state and federal assistance. More than 1,000 people are injured each year in traffic accidents on U.S. 19 in Pasco County. Making the highway safer gained a sense of urgency after 38 people died there in 2001, twice the annual average over the previous seven years.
The list of west-side road improvements includes adding a median and continuous turn lane to Seven Springs Boulevard, fixing Grand Boulevard's intersections with Trouble Creek Road, Moog Road and Mile Stretch Drive, and adding intersection lanes at Regency Park Boulevard and San Miguel Drive and at U.S. 19 and Fox Hollow Drive. All are heavily traveled routes.
Non-drivers also will benefit. The project list includes money to buy transit shelters for bus patrons and $3.5-million to extend the Starkey Trail bicycle and pedestrian path from Congress Street to Starkey Boulevard.
The project list won't please people looking for the pothole in front of their own home to be smoothed over. Repaving residential streets is not included here because of the county's paving assessment program that bills property owners for street repaving.
Still, the Penny for Pasco transportation list is a legitimate plan to provide better service to bikers, walkers, bus riders and motorists around Pasco County.