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By ANDREW MEACHAM
© St. Petersburg Times, published April 15, 2001
ST. PETERSBURG -- In the mid 1970s, local visionaries foresaw a bustling commuter city, home to 400,000-plus residents and teeming with motorists who all needed to be somewhere else, fast.
That never happened. St. Petersburg's population has hovered for years under 250,000.
More than 18,000 vehicles travel daily on the Dr. M.L. King (Ninth) and Eighth Street "corridor" between Ninth Avenue N and Ninth Avenue S. Designers of the one-way conversion anticipated more than three times that amount. As a result, local business owners complain, one-way traffic has helped to turn their once-thriving area into a ghost town and downtown business streets into a freeway.
Proponents of undoing that 30-year experiment and returning the sections of street to two-way flow are hoping a consultant's plan due Friday will help their cause.
Tampa Bay Engineering is putting the finishing touches on its study, expected to cover such issues as safety, cost, traffic congestion and the likely effect on special-events traffic entering or leaving Tropicana Field. If all goes as planned, representatives from the city's Department of Engineering, Stormwater and Transportation will lay out the options May 10 before a City Council subcommittee.
The department is looking for an "open and frank discussion" with the council and the public, said assistant director Angelo Rao, a supporter of two-way traffic. "We understand that there are some potential complications, but they are solvable, in our opinion."
Some of those complications entail satisfying the Florida Department of Transportation. Since both Eighth Street and Dr. M.L. King Street have entrances and exits feeding into I-275, the state would have to approve any conversion back to two-way.
"Whenever you convert a one-way into a two-way, that generally degrades capacity," DOT assistant district traffic operations engineer Alan Gilbronson said. Officials would want to ensure that going back to two-way would not back up traffic on interstate ramps, he said.
Among the thornier challenges for planners: How would northbound drivers on Dr. M.L. King get onto the interstate, currently accessible only to southbound traffic? The Federal Highway Administration also must sign off on any changes approved by the DOT, said DOT legislative liaison Marian Pscion.
Mark Taber, who heads the M.L.K. Business District, said the association has received at least 30 letters of support for two-way traffic.
"We don't want the most expensive plan," Taber said. "We just want to get (the conversion) done. Local businesses are pushing hard for this."
The Lakewood Estates Neighborhood Festival brings police and health authorities to the 31st Street Sports Complex Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Blood donors can come away with T-shirts, and the first 200 people who want a Club auto theft prevention device can have one for free, said Lakewood Estates community police Officer Richard Grimberg. The Lakewood Estates Crime Watch hosts the annual event and will give out music CDs to winners of a punt, pass and kick contest.