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Parkway access nears reality

Legislation promises to activate the interchange at Lutz-Lake Fern Road. A coming high school lent urgency to the project.

By BILL COATS
Published May 21, 2006

"We've been directed to get the final plans into gear here," said Joanne Hurley, spokeswoman for Florida's Turnpike Enterprise, the agency in charge of the state's toll roads.

The interchange has been sought by a coalition of local government and civic groups since the Hillsborough County School District announced plans nearly two years ago to build a high school next to the intersection. Turnpike leaders committed to speed up the arrival of the interchange, which had not been scheduled to be built before 2016. But the plans stalled last year amid financial uncertainty.

Now, new state legislation promises to activate the interchange, plus other road projects around Florida, barring a veto by Gov. Jeb Bush. The bill, which passed the Legislature two weeks ago by lopsided margins, would broaden the state's ability to borrow for toll roads. It would allow financing for the $17.5-million interchange and for a $150-million eight-lane widening of the Veterans Expressway between Memorial Highway and Anderson Road, scheduled after 2010.

The bill had not reached Bush by Friday, and the governor's staff didn't respond to a query on whether he'll sign it. In addition to the turnpike provisions, the bill would let counties levy a $2-a-day tax on car rentals and use the money for transportation improvements.

Activists along Lutz-Lake Fern launched an e-mail effort last week to persuade Bush to sign the bill. Sharon Calvo, president of the Lutz-Lake Fern Communities Coalition, said a dozen or more e-mails had been sent in the first two days. Calvo, who also is the VillaRosa homeowners association president, said quicker access to the Suncoast should boost property values along the corridor.

It also would increase safety on Lutz-Lake Fern, "keeping as many cars as possible off this road by getting them on the highway," Calvo said.

A turnpike study found that the interchange would relieve congestion at Lutz-Lake Fern's intersections with Sunlake Boulevard and N Dale Mabry Highway, where the road is already jammed beyond capacity. But it would transfer some of that traffic toward the school campuses.

Pegged to 2015, the study projected that the interchange would attract an extra 2,600 vehicles a day from the east and 1,500 from the west. But it would reduce daily traffic on Sunlake by 5,200.

No tolls would be collected at the interchange; motorists entering the Suncoast at Lutz-Lake Fern would encounter toll booths "downstream," said Alison Stettner, regional planning administrator for the turnpike system.

The proposed high school on Lutz-Lake Fern is in the midst of a rezoning. It is scheduled to open in August 2009.

Neighborhood groups and PTAs have universally supported the plan for the high school, which would create a triple campus with Martinez Middle School and McKitrick Elementary School. But they also have insisted that Hillsborough County improve two-lane Lutz-Lake Fern Road. This month, a county consultant began studying the options for widening the road.

Stettner said that before fall, her agency is likely to choose a company that would both design and build the interchange, to accomplish it more quickly.

"We're setting up the package to advertise the project in the next couple of months," Stettner said.

"It seems like things are coming quickly to a head," said Hurley, the turnpike spokeswoman. "We're trying to do our part to coordinate with the other government agencies."

Bill Coats can be reached at 813 269-5309 or coats@sptimes.com.

[Last modified May 21, 2006, 08:28:04]