A double-deck SR 54? Maybe

Officials have budgeted $420,000 to study the possibility of an elevated 10-mile toll road.

By CHUIN-WEI YAP, Times Staff Writer
Published October 3, 2007

LAND O'LAKES - For the county's road planners, State Road 54 may as well be a ticking time bomb.

Once it's expanded to six lanes between Interstate 75 and the Suncoast Parkway, traffic planners would have dwindling options to deal with central Pasco's ever growing crush of cars.

But a new idea - call it a double vision - is now getting money behind it.

County officials have budgeted $420,000 for a professional study to double-deck SR 54.

The idea is to have an elevated toll road run above those 10 miles of SR 54, the same way the elevated portion of the Lee Roy Selmon Crosstown Expressway runs between Brandon and downtown Tampa. It echoes ongoing county-sponsored studies to turn the Ridge Road extension and parts of the I-75 into toll lanes.

Sound hokey?

Not if you think about the limits to road expansion that county planners are up against, said Michele Baker, Pasco's chief assistant administrator.

"We cannot widen beyond the six lanes planned due to wetlands impact," she said Tuesday. "You cannot toll a local road, but you can toll a strategic intermodal road."

That's planner-speak for a system of roads that the state regards as "regionally significant" in moving goods and people around. SR 54 is part of it; so are I-75 and the Suncoast.

County planners know it would be impossible to toll SR 54 as it exists today. There are too many homes and businesses along it, Baker said. Buying right-of-way for further expansion could well become too expensive, she said.

Traffic planners also know that every new lane that expands a road beyond six lanes brings increasingly less bang for the buck in terms of moving people around.

Along large portions of this stretch of SR 54, county officials also have to deal with environmental issues.

Take the portion between Livingston Road and the interstate, Baker said.

"On the north side of that, you have wetland issues," she said.

For the price and the ecological headache of pursuing that option, you might as well think about building a bridge, she said.

This is why officials are pursuing the notion of an elevated high-speed expressway.

"You can toll it and you can have less access points," Baker said.

The county hasn't hired its consultant yet, but will do it this budget year.

Whoever's hired will have to look into three proposals: widen SR 54, build a road parallel to it, and the double-decker idea, she said.

How much might a double-decker cost?

Every time county planners try to get a fix on that, they get tied up in knots, Baker said. One of the big question marks is what kind of support structure, including beams, this elevated road might need. She didn't attempt an estimate Tuesday.

But one possible point of reference is the elevated Selmon crosstown road, which runs about 6 miles.

The bill for that? $350-million, not counting the $100-million in extra costs after parts of the road collapsed during construction in mid 2004, because of soft soil.

Chuin-Wei Yap can be reached at 813909-4613 or cyap@sptimes.com.

[Last modified October 2, 2007, 21:26:50]