MacDill Air Force Base: MacDill commuters fear kinks in plans
Slowdowns and stoplights on Bayshore would affect many MacDill base employees, already frustrated by the Crosstown construction.
By JAY CRIDLIN
Published August 13, 2004
Like most of his co-workers, Jack Dees commutes daily from the Brandon area to MacDill Air Force Base.
Sometimes, he stays on the Lee Roy Selmon Crosstown Expressway all the way to the base, but usually he exits in downtown Tampa and continues south on Bayshore Boulevard.
As a result, Dees and his co-workers have taken an interest in Tampa's efforts to increase safety on Bayshore, such as reducing speed limits, adding stoplights and eliminating gaps in the median.
"The people who've read about it shake their head and go, "Good Lord, three more traffic lights on our trip home,' " says Dees, a civilian base employee who lives in Valrico. "Every day, we're going across the Crosstown and everything that's going on there. Now, it's like, how much more of this can go on before we get settled in?"
This week, a task force presented Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio with recommendations to make Bayshore safer. Depending on what the mayor pursues, the changes could have a big impact on MacDill employees, two-thirds of whom commute to the base from eastern Hillsborough County.
MacDill Air Force Base has four gates, including one at the south end of Bayshore and another at the south end of MacDill Avenue. Many drivers exit the Crosstown before the western toll plaza near downtown and head south on Bayshore.
"We would certainly like to encourage people to use the Crosstown," said task force chairman Steve Daignault. "We think it would relieve the congestion and the traffic on Bayshore."
Daignault said the task force may ask the Tampa-Hillsborough Expressway Authority to eliminate the $1 toll between downtown Tampa and the southern end of the Crosstown. Doing so would encourage commuters to use the Crosstown instead of Bayshore, he thinks.
"They don't want to pay a dollar to go into town and a dollar to come home," he said. "They're going to use Bayshore."
The Dale Mabry gate is already the busiest base entrance. In June, base officials recorded about 2,753 cars a day at the MacDill Avenue gate, 8,554 cars at the Bayshore gate and 18,005 cars at the Dale Mabry gate.
If more commuters take the Crosstown all the way south, it could mean longer delays at the Dale Mabry gate.
To relieve congestion, MacDill is spending $7-million to renovate and expand the entrances, particularly those on Dale Mabry and in Port Tampa.
Task force member Tony Rodriguez, a community planner and traffic engineer for the base, said MacDill will open new lanes at the Dale Mabry entrance in part to accommodate the extra Crosstown traffic.
"It should not create any more delays than we already have," said Rodriguez, a civilian. "You will have at least one more through lane coming into the base in the morning. ... That would offset any additional traffic that we would see on Dale Mabry."
Daignault said the proposed changes likely would have a greater impact on people driving north on Bayshore in the mornings.
The task force was formed after an accident involving a man commuting from Brandon to the base.
Melissa McKenzie, 39, was struck and killed Feb. 3 by a speeding motorcycle while jogging along Bayshore. The biker, William R. Napier of Brandon, was a Navy petty officer. He has been charged with vehicular homicide and faces a 15-year prison sentence.
