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Beltway planned to skirt Tampa

The Expressway Authority hopes the 70-mile toll road would ease interstate congestion and open in 2015.

By JANET ZINK and MICHAEL VAN SICKLER
Published July 28, 2006

TAMPA - Transportation officials are planning a sprawling beltway around the Tampa Bay area.

The toll road would run from the northern part of Manatee County, through eastern Hillsborough, west across southern Pasco County and into northern Pinellas. If plans proceed, backers say construction could begin in 2010 with the first segments open to cars in 2015.

Planners say they don't yet have a price tag for the project, which calls for 70 miles of new highway. But using current state road construction estimates of $50-million a mile, the new road could cost around $3.5-billion.

And those costs could climb because much of the land needed for the road veers close to or through suburban communities such as South Shore, Apollo Beach, Sun City Center and FishHawk Ranch in southern Hillsborough County.

The project is the latest proposed by the Tampa-Hillsborough County Expressway Authority, an agency that just opened the first leg of the $450-million elevated lanes of the Lee Roy Selmon Crosstown Expressway a year behind schedule.

"It's critical that we improve our transportation system," said Tampa City Council member Shawn Harrison, who chairs the county's Metropolitan Planning Organization and hailed the project as a practical solution to worsening congestion.

But the proposal has skeptics.

"Our emphasis needs to be on mass transit, not additional beltways and expressways," said Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio.

A preliminary traffic analysis predicts the road could divert tens of thousands of cars from Interstate 275 and Interstate 75, said Ralph Mervine, the Expressway Authority's executive director.

He described the toll road as the "backbone" of a road network with the county building the "ribs" leading to employment and population centers.

The plan will be presented to the County Commission on Wednesday.

The fast-growing areas in eastern Hillsborough and New Tampa will pose problems in acquiring the necessary land, planners said. But there is still some land that hasn't been swallowed up by homes.

Meanwhile, road construction and land costs are rapidly increasing.

"It's one of the reasons we're trying to go as fast as we can," said Marty Stone, the authority's planning director.

The authority hopes to determine costs by September.

Those costs, though, would likely be covered by tolls, Mervine said, and private partners will help finance the project. Mervine said companies interested in a public-private toll road in North Tampa have asked him if there are other projects in Hillsborough County with which they could get involved.

The project is still a long way from reality. The authority needs to get agreements with the four counties, secure financing and complete design and environmental studies.

Authority officials emphasized the route identified is preliminary.

"These are lines on a map, but they are not recommended lines," Stone said.

For months, the authority kept its project under wraps.

During a mid June meeting with residents in southern Hillsborough, county officials unveiled the plan but suggested details would be "hush-hush" until a later date, said FishHawk Ranch resident Dawn Chavez.

Secret or not, Chavez said residents concluded the road didn't seem to suit their travel needs.

"When everyone needs to go to Tampa, this would be the longer route," Chavez said. "Pretty much, the consensus was: 'You've got to be kidding me.' "

Earlier this year, Mervine told a St. Petersburg Times reporter the Expressway Authority was focused on completing the elevated Crosstown lanes and not planning other projects. After an authority spokeswoman said she had no information about the rumored project in early July, the Times made a public records request, which was made available Thursday.

Mervine said he didn't want to unveil the project until they had more details on it but decided to release information because so many had heard about it.

At Wednesday's meeting, the authority will ask commissioners for the okay to begin planning with Hillsborough's Metropolitan Planning Organization and other counties.

"A lot of this could be done in Hillsborough County," Mervine said. "We don't have to go into Pasco and Pinellas County. We'll see how those county commissions feel."

The beltway project is the latest in a rapidly growing inventory of long-range transportation plans that promise to ease local and regional mobility woes with more toll roads.

Recently, the Expressway Authority announced it will build a long-awaited east-west toll road in New Tampa connecting Interstate 275 to Bruce B. Downs Boulevard. It's estimated to cost $150-million.

Also in the works is a plan by the Florida Department of Transportation to build a 150-mile long corridor from Charlotte County, through eastern Hillsborough, to the northern edge of Hernando. Much of that project is planned for tolls.

Meanwhile, the Tampa Bay Partnership, an economic development organization, is seeking to form a regional transportation authority that can build its own projects.

Joe Smith, a member of the Partnership, said his organization agreed to support the Expressway Authority's plan after assurances from Mervine that there would be a mass transit component in the beltway corridor.

The project has another powerful supporter in commission Chairman Jim Norman.

"We can't continue widening roads," Norman said. "The costs are astronomical. If we can take a loop system into undeveloped land, and put in access points, then it will cost less and the permitting will be faster so it can get built sooner."

Times staff writer Saundra Amrhein contributed to this report.

[Last modified July 31, 2006, 05:27:55]