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By Melody Jameson
mj@observernews.net
Using continuous loop video, elaborate display boards and full color brochures, Florida Department of Transportation engineers exhibited potential alternative expansions of I-75 through South Hillsborough during a public open house this week.
What they could not discuss in detail were additional transportation issues of critical importance to a number of South County residents – possible new interchanges at the Hillsborough-Manatee county line and at a site in the Apollo Beach area.
The first of two open houses, designed to give area residents a sense of what freeway improvements are being considered, was conducted Monday, June 15, at United Methodist Church of Sun City Center. A second was slated for 5 to 7 p.m. on Wednesday, June 17, in the Florida Center building at the Florida State Fairgrounds on U.S. 301, just south of I-4.
To make a lot of information easier to digest, personnel from the FDOT District 7 office in Tampa broke the length of the interstate highway through Hillsborough County into two segments, calling one the Southern Study and the other the Northern Study. The Southern Study section stretches from Moccasin Wallow Road to a point just south of U.S. 301.
Projecting increases in daily vehicle traffic along the southern study section to 129,700 vehicles per day by 2035, the engineers suggested that widening the interstate roadway from six to 10 lanes is driven by several factors. I-75 is a major trade and tourism corridor, is necessary to emergency evacuation and figures in emergency response times, among other considerations, the engineers said.
And, in response to those needs, they have conceived of three alternative expansion designs, labeled 1A, 1B and 2. Each of the three potential roadway re-designs envisions five northbound lanes and five southbound lanes. Of those five lanes in each direction, three are foreseen as general use lanes (GULs) while two in each direction are designated as special use lanes (SULs). The most basic difference between the three concepts, beyond cost considerations, is the type of traffic separation designed into them.
Alternative 1A, for example, maintains the existing grassed 88-foot-wide median while creating the three12-foot-wide general use lanes separated by a two-foot barrier from the two 12-foot-wide special use lanes in each direction. Such a design requires acquisition of right-of-way and comes with an anticipated price tag of $515 million to $540 million, in today’s dollars.
Alternative 1B is similar to the first concept and retains the 88-foot-wide median, but is designed with more narrow borders on each outside of the five-lanes. This plan could require outside barrier walls plus short retaining walls along much of the south study stretch, running up construction costs. The most expensive of the three design concepts, 1B with its barrier walls is projected to cost between $525 million to $552 million, calculated in 2009 dollars.
Alternative 2 uses the three GULs and two SULs in each direction but eliminates the center median altogether. Under this concept, the general and special use lanes would be separated by a six-foot barrier in each direction. Another major barrier device between the north and south bound lanes is yet to be determined, engineers said. The least costly of the three designs, No. 2 is estimated to run between $290 million and $320 million.
As for the three existing interchanges along the southern study route – at S.R. 674 near Sun City Center, at Big Bend Road near Apollo Beach and at Gibsonton Drive between Riverview and Gibsonton – engineers emphasized that FDOT is analyzing each. Improvements could include modifications to entrance and exit ramps, addition of turn lanes or reconfiguration, they added.
And, the engineers were even less forthcoming at this point about new interchanges in the South County. The department did perform feasibility studies for Hillsborough County related to an I-75 interchange concept at 19th Avenue N.E. , a concept at the eastern extension of Apollo Beach Boulevard to C.R. 672 and a concept at Rhodine Road, acknowledged Kirk Bogen, project development engineer in the FODT D-7 office. The results were provided to the county a couple of months ago, he added, but his agency made no recommendations.
Another potential interchange design near the Hillsborough-Manatee County line, considered by residents in Sundance and Sun City to be necessary if a proposed multi-model container center is approved for a site north of the Port of Manatee, actually is the purview of FDOT’s Bartow office, Bogen said. None of the potential roadway projects are funded at this time and none are included in the state agency’s five-year budget planning. However, Bogen noted, “things can change; projects can drop out, projects can be added.”
Public comment on the open house exhibits and interstate plans can be made online through the website, www.mytbi.com through June 29.
A public hearing on these ongoing I-75 Project Development and Environment Studies is expected to be set for sometime in December, 2009, engineers said. The department is to complete the study in 2010.
Hillsborough County transportation planners have scheduled a public meeting on the subject for 5:30 PM Thursday (June 18) at the SouthShore Services Center on 30th Street.
©2009 Melody Jameson
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