Print

Email story

Comment

Letter to the editor

Road upgrades set for track

At Tampa Bay Downs, $55-million in improvements are planned in the next two years.

By Terri Bryce Reeves, Times Correspondent
Published March 11, 2008

OLDSMAR - At Tampa Bay Downs, racehorses thunder around the oval track each December through May.

That's hardly the case, though, with the horseless carriages outside the facility.

As race fans pour into the parking lot, park their cars and then try to cross the two lanes of Race Track Road, traffic can slow to a crawl, back up in both directions and clog nearby intersections.

But relief is on the way.

Hillsborough County is planning to widen a portion of Race Track Road to six lanes and realign the new highway around the west side of the horse track.

That's welcome news, Oldsmar Mayor Jim Ronecker said recently after hearing plans for the project.

"The improvements are going to help," he said. "They're just not going to happen soon enough."

It will likely be 2010 before all the construction work is finished.

And along the way, the intersection of Forest Lakes Boulevard and Race Track Road will be closed at some point, according to William Alford, the Race Track Road project manager who briefed the Oldsmar City Council about the plan.

One bright spot: Hillsborough County is picking up the $55-million tab.

Improvements to Race Track Road will take place in four phases from S Mobley Road in Hillsborough County to Tampa Road, at the Pinellas-Hillsborough line.

The project includes:

- A new four-lane segment in Hillsborough between S Mobley Road and Countryway Boulevard.

- A second leg, now under construction in Hillsborough, that will widen Race Track to four lanes from Forest Lakes Boulevard to Countryway. It should be done in three or four months.

- The third leg, which will be a six-lane divided roadway from Forest Lakes to Douglas Road. That phase will reroute Race Track to the west side of Tampa Bay Downs and its parking lot to eliminate pedestrian crossings. This section is expected to begin in July and last about 16 months, thereby affecting only one race season.

- The final segment will widen Race Track to a six-lane divided road from Douglas to Tampa Road. Crews may begin working on this leg in March 2009 and will likely finish in about 13 months.

The Forest Lakes Boulevard intersection, where 18,000 cars a day pass, will have to be closed as crews rebuild and elevate it 3 or 4 feet, Alford said.

Oldsmar City Council members gasped when they heard that.

"It's too difficult" to do it another way, Alford said. He didn't know the time line, but he promised no more than two weekends of closures and plenty of notice.

Ronecker said there are big problems with traffic congestion at the intersection of Forest Lakes Boulevard, which becomes Linebaugh Avenue in Hillsborough County, and Race Track Road, perhaps because of the current construction.

"Cars line up almost a quarter of a mile down the road on Forest Lakes Boulevard at 5:30, 4:30 in the afternoon," Ronecker said. "Any way we can time those lights better?"

"You mean today?" Alford asked.

"Tomorrow would be better," Ronecker said, joking.

Alford said he wasn't aware of the problem but promised to look into the question and get back to him.

"When you go to plan closing of that intersection for those two weekends, my suggestion would be to do everything you can to avoid doing it during hurricane season," council member Eric Seidel said.

It could result in disaster, he said.

"Not that we're going to have a hurricane," Seidel said. "We're not. But if we were going to, it would be during hurricane season when you close that intersection."

Alford assured him that wouldn't be the case.

"It's an evacuation route, so we recognize the importance of being able to try to get the road built for that," Alford said.

Contact correspondent Terri Bryce Reeves at treeves@tampabay.rr.com.

[Last modified March 10, 2008, 20:41:01]