All roads lead to Tampa (in an hour)

No matter which way you drive to Tampa, it takes about an hour to get where you’re going.

By JENNIFER FARRELL

© St. Petersburg Times, published February 6, 2001

If you live in Hernando County, it still takes five hours to get to Tampa.

Okay, not really.

Trip analysis

[Times photo: Kevin White] The new Suncoast Parkway was an easy drive for most travelers on its first workday test Monday.

But Suncoast Parkway or no Suncoast Parkway, there's no getting around the fact that a trip to Tampa is still a trip. In fact, it takes about an hour, give or take, depending on where you start, where you're going and which route you choose.

On Monday, the Times sent five staffers, two starting in Spring Hill and three in Brooksville, on test runs, during morning rush hour.

The idea was to pick two central departure points and see how long it took to get to a common destination for Hernando County residents: namely, Tampa International Airport.

When it was over, we found about what we thought we would; that is, the parkway's benefits depend largely on how far you have to go to get to it, how many other people are headed in the same direction and what time of day you leave.

The other variable is, of course, speed. But our editors controlled the experiment by making us promise to stay within posted limits.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should tell you that technical difficulties might have skewed the results of the Spring Hill comparison slightly, when one of our drivers (not me) accidentally veered off course and had to do the trip a second time.

Saundra Amrhein, who, like me, was still employed as of press time, repeated her trip down Mariner Boulevard a little over four hours after we first set off at 8 a.m. from the intersection of Spring Hill Drive and Mariner Boulevard.

The second time around, Amrhein remembered to follow the right course and turn off U.S. 41 on to Dale Mabry Highway, taking Veterans Expressway to the airport exit.

I, too, repeated the trip down the parkway to Tampa, after my tripometer failed, leaving me with no mileage record. An initial check of the gauge showed I didn't push the button down all the way.

But I digress.

Amrhein made the second trip to Tampa, more specifically the airport's Post Office parking lot, in 52 minutes, compared to my 51. Had she gone at rush hour, though, her time would likely have gone up with heavier traffic on Dale Mabry and Veterans.

From Brooksville, all three drivers set out from the Times office at 161 E Jefferson St., making the trip only once and recording their mileage correctly the first time around.

Hernando Times Editor Mike Konrad took State Road 50 to Spring Lake Highway to Interstate 75, then I-275 to the airport exit. Staff writer Jamie Malernee headed west on SR 50 to the parkway, south to Veterans Expressway and on to the airport. Staff photographer Olie Stonerook used the back roads: U.S. 41 south to Dale Mabry; then Veterans to the airport.

The parkway ride lasted 55 minutes and shaved a full eight minutes off the I-75 route and 13 minutes off the trip down U.S. 41, which was by far the longest, at 68 minutes, one way.

In the end, we proved one thing: getting to Tampa from Hernando County takes about an hour, no matter the route.

Unless you're riding with Amrhein or me.

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