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When will SR 54 be widened?

By CHUIN-WEI YAP
Published February 10, 2007

WESLEY CHAPEL - When Dee Fisher moved to Citrus Trace 11 years ago, State Road 54 was just a two-lane road outside her subdivision.

Today, a big new mall is poised to join the crush of developments in the neighborhood, but SR 54 is ... well, still a two-lane road.

"When I first moved here, it took me three minutes to get to the interstate," Fisher said. "Now, it's at least 10 minutes."

Those like James McKay, who lives in the Brookside development next to Saddlebrook, have learned to rely on the yellow-striped median in the middle of SR 54.

That is where he must dart, if he hopes to make that elusive turn out of his home to head to Interstate 75.

"The only things that have changed around here are more traffic lights going up," Fisher said.

The latest set of lights come courtesy of Fisher's neighbor, Saddlebrook Resort.

The resort's entrance is being remodeled now in preparation for the new lights. No exact date yet on when the lights will be installed, a Saddlebrook official said.

The new signals might make it easier for Saddlebrook patrons, but they revive a 4-year-old question and a big irritation for SR 54 motorists:

When will the road be widened?

* * *

The answer is late 2008 - maybe.

Here's what the project is supposed to do:

SR 54 will expand from two to six lanes between Bruce B. Downs Boulevard and Curley Road, which would help Saddlebrook.

East of Curley Road, SR 54 will fork: SR 54 itself will continue as a two-lane road while to the north a new four-lane road, called the Zephyrhills Bypass, will be cut.

The project comes with big "ifs."

There are more than 100 property owners on the 3-mile stretch. Pasco must negotiate with them if it hopes to buy enough land for the 160-foot-wide right of way.

Pasco hopes its consultants can complete design and mapping this week, said Michele Baker, Pasco's engineering services administrator.

If they can do that, letters from the county will go out next week to the property owners to start negotiations.

If negotiations go well, construction could start by the end of 2008, Baker said.

If all that happens, Pasco's road builders would have ended four years of delay and mistakes.

In 2003, Pasco could not sew up negotiations with property owners along that stretch.

In February 2004, the county hired Reynolds Smith & Hills as the project consultants and gave them a year to draw up right of way maps.

Deadlines came and went.

Reynolds found itself mired in talks with at least 10 other consultants and developers on SR 54. Pasco ran into delays just scheduling meetings with the Southwest Florida Water Management District. Major portions of the work had to be reworked, including the project's length and location of drainage ponds.

Today, three years after Reynolds was engaged, the right of way maps are not a done deal.

Meanwhile, the backups on SR 54 have grown longer.

* * *

Fed up with the chronic jams outside the resort, Saddlebrook is paying for new traffic lights on its own, which typically cost $300,000 per set.

The resort is allowed to set up the new lights before the road gets widened, as long as it constructs the signals as if they would straddle an already widened road, Baker said.

Saddlebrook already got the go-ahead from the state Department of Transportation, spokeswoman Kris Carson said.

But with the arrival of Grove At Wesley Chapel, a new mall due to be completed off I-75 by the end of this year, even the traffic lights are not a cause for celebration at Saddlebrook.

"When that mall gets built, we're just not going anywhere," said Al Martinez-Fonts, Saddlebrook's spokesman. "They need to do something. It's overwhelming."

In 2002, an average of 28,100 cars used the road daily.

By 2025, the figure is expected to be 39,700, according to a county consultant.

It already feels like 2025 to James McKay.

McKay, who claims a direct lineage to the 19th-century Tampa mayor of the same name, moved to Brookside after 33 years in Citrus Park.

He's 63 now, and moved away from his ancestral city to get away from urbanization.

McKay said he is thinking of moving again, this time to Webster in Sumter County, where he has a 300-acre farm.

"I don't want to sit here in traffic until my patience runs out," he said.

So much for peace and quiet.

Chuin-Wei Yap covers growth and development in Pasco County. He can be reached at 813909-4613 or cyap@sptimes.com.

[Last modified February 10, 2007, 01:02:17]