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Trying to get transit ahead of the growth

Millions more people are coming to the bay area and the DOT wants to be out in front.

By JEAN HELLER
Published June 27, 2006

Ben O'Brien commutes six days a week from Lakeland to Largo, where he manages a small family restaurant. His wife, Beth, commutes to Kissimmee, where she works as a legal secretary.

They put a combined 1,300 miles on their cars each week.

Bob Soptei, a Pinellas County environmental program manager, commutes five days a week from Brandon to Clearwater, a four-hour round-trip.

"It's not a pleasant 72 miles, and during snowbird and spring break seasons, it can be nightmarish," Soptei said.

Forecasts predict the region's population will nearly double in the next 40 years. To get ahead of the curve and the crowds, state transportation officials are trying to figure out now where people are going to be in 2050 and their busiest travel patterns.

The goal of an ambitious, first-of-its kind, regional plan set to be unveiled this fall: stop retrofitting roads and highways with new lanes after the traffic becomes untenable.

"We can't keep building lanes," said Robert M. Clifford, a planning and development manager with the Florida Department of Transportation's Region 7. It includes the Tampa Bay area.

Difficult commutes often develop out of necessity. O'Brien and his wife split the difference between their jobs and have been doing it for a year. Meanwhile, Soptie's in-laws live in Sun City Center. He and his wife wanted to be close to them so he began his commuting five years ago. He estimated he spends several hundred dollars on gas a month.

"If this area is going to grow by 3-million people by 2040, they're not all going to be living in Tampa and St. Petersburg," Clifford said. "We want transit to stay ahead of the growth, or at least simultaneous with it. It is an expensive vision, but it's not as expensive as coming back and rebuilding after the fact."

DOT's computer models are looking at where developers are expected to create new housing tracts, shopping centers and industrial and business parks.

If you look out 25 years, there are few surprises in projected traffic patterns, Clifford said. People will still be trying to get from St. Petersburg to Tampa, central Pasco to Tampa, Pinellas to Pasco, and Manatee to Pinellas and Hillsborough.

"But 40 years from now, Brooksville-Tampa movement becomes critical," Clifford said.

Other new patterns likely to emerge:

There is unlikely to be any new pattern involving Pinellas County, though the flow will increase south from Pasco, west from Hillsborough and north from Manatee.

"If you draw these corridors on a map, people will think we're going through their neighborhoods with new roads, and that's not the plan at all," Clifford said. "We are gathering data on what the starting points and the end points likely will be. The exact routes and the type of transportation to be developed for each has yet to be decided."

It could be roads, rail or bus, Clifford said.

"Nothing is off the table," he said. "The only thing that's certain is this infrastructure can't all be roads."

Because Manatee, Sarasota and Polk counties are involved in the study but are not in DOT's Region 7, Region 1 is cooperating in the study, which has been going on for 18 months.

The objective is to avoid situations such as Pinellas County, which until the last few years had no good north-south corridors and still lacks top-grade east-west corridors.

"Or North Tampa, which is horrible," said Clifford. "There's one way in and one way out. And South County, where there are north-south corridors, but none east-west."

DOT officials point to Pasco County as a model for their plan.

"When the county decided to extend State Road 56 from 581 (Bruce B. Downs) to U.S. 301, the developers were lined up," Clifford said. "So the county said, 'Okay, if you want to build there, give us the right of way for the road.' "

"And they did," said Ali Atefi, a transportation engineer with the Pasco County Metropolitan Planning Organization.

It is, Clifford says, one way to hold down costs.

Since the study includes eight counties, six MPOs, five major regional metropolitan centers and 35 incorporated areas, cooperation is essential, Clifford said. "Responses have been positive so far, but everyone wants to know how this will affect them and their plans," he said.

O'Brien and Soptei both said they would be eager to try alternatives to their current commutes, but have no viable options. Soptei said he could drive to Tampa and catch an express bus to Clearwater, "but there aren't very many of them, and they don't run very often,."

Maybe in 40 years.

[Last modified June 27, 2006, 05:36:25]