Part of an elevated roadway being built in Tampa collapses, detouring expressway traffic for days to come.
By SHANNON COLAVECCHIO-VAN SICKLER
Published April 14, 2004
[
Times photo: Ken Helle]
Traffic backs up on the 22nd Street Causeway Boulevard in Tampa on Tuesday after part of an elevated roadway being built over the Lee Roy Selmon Crosstown Expressway was felled by a sinkhole.
TAMPA - The gridlock after Tuesday's collapse of a portion of the elevated expressway under construction between Brandon and Tampa was just a taste of the sloooow misery to come.
Commuters on the Lee Roy Selmon Crosstown Expressway should "expect delays and leave early" for the foreseeable future as workers scramble to fix the mess just west of the 50th Street toll plaza, said Trooper Larry Coggins, spokesman for the Florida Highway Patrol.
Until contractors for the Tampa-Hillsborough Expressway Authority finish repairs to the 300-foot span that buckled into a sinkhole about 7:15 a.m. Tuesday, FHP and Tampa police officers will reroute Crosstown traffic going in both directions around the 50th street ramps.
That means delays not only for Crosstown users, but also for drivers on 50th Street.
"The priority is going to be getting the Crosstown traffic flowing," said Tampa police spokesman Joe Durkin. "So 50th will be open, but unless you're trying to get onto the Crosstown, you might want to make alternate plans to avoid 50th."
Drivers traveling eastbound on the Crosstown between 39th and 50th streets will be restricted to one outside lane, instead of the two lanes available along much of the rest of the toll road.
At 50th Street, traffic will be diverted down the exit ramp and past the tollbooth. Drivers will be sent across 50th to the on ramp, right back onto the Crosstown.
"So it's not like you even have to go all the way around the block," said Expressway Authority spokeswoman Lori Buck. "It's just off and right back on."
The same on-and-off route at 50th Street will apply to traffic coming from the other direction. Traffic from the Crosstown won't be allowed to make left turns when exiting the ramp from either direction.
Drivers won't have to pay tolls at the 50th Street booth during the closure.
The plan allows contractors to set up a sort of staging area for repair equipment on the portion of the Crosstown between the on and off ramps, Buck said.
The repairs come after a small sinkhole formed near 50th Street under one of the "piers," or support pillars, that are part of an elevated toll road being built in the median of the existing Crosstown.
The pillar sank about 15 feet into the sinkhole, and the road span on top of the pillar came down, too.
The collapse shut down the Crosstown in both directions for three hours, snarling a major commuter route used by more than 75,000 vehicles each day - right at the peak of morning rush hour.
Buck said the Expressway Authority plans to rebuild the pier and fill the sinkhole, but it's too early to tell how long that will take or how long traffic will be affected.
In the meantime, Coggins encourages commuters to take alternate routes such as Interstate 4 and State Road 60. But both are already heavily used roads, and I-4 has its own construction-related delays.
Within an hour of Tuesday's collapse, SR 60 was clogged even more than usual with cars trying to avoid the Crosstown.
"It's not going to be fun," Coggins said. "But we want to keep people as far away as we can from the collapse, and this is the best way to do that."
County Commissioner Ronda Storms, who lives in Brandon, usually uses the Crosstown to get downtown. She avoided it Tuesday morning, thanks to a heads-up from her husband, and said she'll use the upcoming traffic delays to get a little work done.
"My advice is: lots of books on tape, lots of multitasking, because you're going to be sitting there," she said. "Swing by Cracker Barrel and check out some books on tape."
