Northpinellas: Lawmaker experiences U.S. 19 from road level

Lawmaker experiences U.S. 19 from road level

A road trip brings state Rep. Randy Johnson, chairman of a transportation committee, face-to-face with the road's problems.

By EDIE GROSS

State Rep. Randy Johnson enjoyed his first ride down the infamous U.S. 19 squeezed into the backseat of a black Volvo sporting the vanity plate MSCHF.

To his credit, he did not leave fingernail marks in the car's interior.

The Republican from Celebration was treated to the excursion Wednesday afternoon in large part because he is chairman of the House Transportation and Economic Development Appropriations Committee. If local officials have any hope of scoring state money to fix U.S. 19 this year, Johnson's support is a must.

After some arm-twisting from Rep. Kim Berfield, a newly elected Clearwater Republican who also sits on Johnson's committee, Johnson agreed to see the road for himself from the relatively safe confines of Berfield's sedan.

He survived the 45-minute trip from Gulf-to-Bay Boulevard down to 118th Avenue in Pinellas Park, coming away with a healthy understanding of the highway's hazards as well as a measure of sympathy for local officials who have tried to improve the road.

"A lot of communities would just abandon this and say, 'Well, you can't get there from here. We'll work on something else,' " said Johnson, watching traffic zip by from the Speedway gas station parking lot just south of 118th Avenue. "It's so complicated. The first step you want to take is backwards."

Members of Johnson's committee already have identified $1.3-billion in roads projects that they want completed statewide, so getting money for U.S. 19 will be difficult. But legislators will be impressed with the community's efforts on its own behalf, Johnson told a group that included Berfield, Pinellas County Commissioner Karen Seel, Pinellas Planning Director Brian Smith, an aide to Sen. Jim Sebesta and Kenneth Hartmann, Department of Transportation District 7 secretary.

"We look to see the community has wrapped itself around this thing and that you've done your homework and you're not just trolling for cash because everybody has bad roads," Johnson said. "It's obvious to me you've done your work."

A task force led by Seel met for six months before releasing a list of 66 suggestions in June.

Seel has made several trips to Washington and Tallahassee to lobby lawmakers for money for those projects. Rather than rely solely on statistics -- 64 people died on U.S. 19 from 1996 through 2000 -- Seel and other local officials have begun treating legislators to live-through-this experiences on the road.

In July, Seel intended to show U.S. Rep. C.W. Bill Young and U.S. Rep. Michael Bilirakis just how dangerous the road was to pedestrians by walking them across U.S. 19. The congressmen had to cancel their trip, but Young, chairman of the U.S. House Appropriations Committee, made sure $50-million was earmarked for the highway in October.

It will take more than that to fix the road. The latest figure bandied about is $545-million, which would pay for flyovers from St. Petersburg to the Pasco County line.

That does not include about $120-million already budgeted for flyovers between Drew Street and Sunset Point Road in Clearwater.

Wednesday, Johnson's hosts laid out the best-case scenario: If the state would set aside $210-million this year, the money, added to the what Young secured, would pay for three more flyovers between 118th Avenue and Countryside Boulevard. That would turn that 12-mile stretch into a limited-access highway and provide an overpass connecting U.S. 19 to I-275 in St. Petersburg.

Johnson's response to the figure: "Ouch."

He promised to do what he could to drive home the importance of improving U.S. 19 to his other committee members. Perhaps, he said, the state could come up with some of the money this year.

"We have to take a bite of the apple we can swallow," Johnson said. "This is a really lean year, a tight year. The good news is we understand these kinds of projects have to continue, and we have to continue to fund them."