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Hush-hush road plan details overpass

The Department of Transportation releases blueprints for a six-lane U.S. 41 overpass across State Road 54. The Citizens Advisory Committee wants the plan out in the open.

By CHUIN-WEI YAP
Published July 20, 2006

State and county officials have been quietly circulating design drawings for a six-lane, $160-million U.S. 41 overpass straddling State Road 54.

A draft engineering plan, commissioned by the Florida Department of Transportation, envisions a bridge that starts at the apex where U.S. 41 forks with Dale Mabry Highway, rises northward over the intersection with SR 54, and lands a mile away, near the Central Pasco Chamber of Commerce.

According to the draft plan, frontage roads would slip down either side of the overpass, converging in an interchange below the bridge.

Hemmed in to the west by railway tracks, the proposed overpass would push its girth eastward, extending 20 to 70 feet of additional right of way and potentially taking out businesses on both sides of SR 54.

Agreements are already in place with developers to six-lane the two halves of SR 54 that flank U.S. 41, and the overpass design draft appears to set the stage for a bargaining process to start between county and state officials on how to pay for the project.

Federal money could eventually back the proposal, but only if Pasco and Florida pony up first. Historically, the winning formula to move such projects forward has been to pool funding sources, said Bob Clifford, planning manager for the DOT district that includes Pasco.

The county has not proposed any numbers, since the project is not yet in the county's long-range plan, said Doug Uden, director of Pasco's Metropolitan Planning Organization.

Clifford estimated a $160-million price tag for construction and right-of-way acquisitions at today's prices.

A "project development and environment" study to kick off the project would cost $1.5-million, Clifford said. Such a study gets a closer look at the proposal's engineering and environmental effects.

Talk of such an overpass has circulated for years as a glimmer in the eye of traffic planners, but the design by consultants Carter & Burgess of Tampa is the clearest indication so far that state officials are moving ideas onto the drawing board.

Department officials say the project is still more than a decade away.

"We looked at the needs in 20 years and we saw that the traffic system there will break down if you don't do anything about it," Clifford said. "We needed to get a feel for what the concept would be. Is this concept necessarily going to be constructed? No."

Traffic load at the intersection, currently estimated at 50,000 a day, is expected to nearly double in 10 to 15 years, said Bijan Behzadi, a DOT traffic design engineer.

The bridge is proposed north-south, because U.S. 41 gets three cars for every two on SR 54, Behzadi said.

Major developments like Connerton are also expected to fill out central Pasco, keeping a steady stream of cars flowing to and from Tampa.

Still, Clifford said the current design is a conservative proposal, one that theorizes maximum impact.

The Carter & Burgess plan shows two retention ponds and a flood plain proposed on the eastern side of U.S. 41 that appear to flatten two strip malls straddling SR 54.

The state has 180 feet of right of way currently, but is considering acquiring 200 to 250 feet, Behzadi said.

Planners are still at a purely conceptual stage, Clifford stressed.

Other possible options include placing the ponds under the bridge, so the state may require less of an eastward thrust.

The Central Pasco Chamber of Commerce has been briefed on the proposal. Kathy Dunkley, the chamber's president, reserved judgment on the bridge, noting only that "it is going to affect all of us."

But Christie Zimmer of the MPO's Citizens Advisory Committee said she wants a full public dialogue on the proposal.

"If you were the DOT and you've hired an engineering planning firm to come up with a meticulous design drawing, and put up a plan, do you think that's not so far down the road?" she said. "The funding is not improbable. They're going to figure out a way to do it. It would impact whatever's being built today, so why are we allowing potential developments to go in there?"

"Are there alternatives?" Zimmer asked. "We need to offer the community more knowledge."

As it is, a Development Review Committee decision in June appeared to agree that the overpass was a done deal.

When builder Todd Caroline applied to get exemptions for a proposed retail center next to the Central Pasco Chamber of Commerce on U.S. 41, he got turned down.

Committee members took in opposing arguments by the chamber's attorney that the overpass would affect Caroline's plans. County staff papers, recommending denial of Caroline's proposal, had also drawn arrows indicating the location of the proposed overpass.

Right now, the earliest date that the proposal could get into the MPO's "cost-affordable" plan would be 2009, Uden said.

If that happens, the proposal then enters the state's 2025 long-range plan for projects.

By then, a similar overpass planned at U.S. 19 and Ridge Road, for which a project development and environment study is currently under way, could have already moved well ahead, Clifford said.

[Last modified July 19, 2006, 22:18:48]