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Dreams Of Two-Way Streets Lay Bare Downtown Nightmare

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 15, 2007

Here's what would happen if Tampa City Councilwomen Linda Saul-Sena and Mary Mulhern were to realize their dream of having the city buy Tampa Street and Florida Avenue and convert them into two-way streets.

According to the state Department of Transportation:

•The Tampa Street trip from I-275 to Channelside would increase by eight to 10 minutes during rush hour.

•The Florida Avenue trip from the interstate north to Hillsborough Avenue would increase by 22 minutes during peak periods.

•The new bottleneck on Tampa Street would back up interstate traffic at the Ashley Drive exit.

•Gridlock would define downtown as three lanes of one-way traffic are reduced to one lane in either direction with a center turn lane.

•Blocks-long back-ups would force downtown drivers to sit through more red-light cycles, adding two to five minutes of delay at each major intersection.

•Frustrated drivers would take chances and accidents would increase, including pedestrian and bicycle accidents.

•North of the interstate, anxious drivers would take back routes through neighborhoods where children play.

•And traffic would grow on the overtaxed southbound Howard Avenue, the only other corridor between the interstate and Bayshore Boulevard.

Saul-Sena and Mulhern seem unpersuaded by the downside of their dream, which would create a nightmare for motorists and a competitive disadvantage for downtown and Channelside.

They want to see the business district treated like an ordinary neighborhood, given its residential growth.

'We're talking about community building, not just transportation,' Saul-Sena said.

Mulhern wants DOT to prepare a cost estimate for converting the roads, a waste of time.

The city's public works department says the roads should remain one-way. So, too, say advisory councils to the local Metropolitan Planning Organization.

The councilwomen are backed by some Seminole Heights residents and business owners who complain that cars along Florida Avenue zip past too fast. The same has been said of motorists in downtown, though DOT planner Daniel Lamb said he observes speeds there between 35 miles per hour and 40 miles per hour.

A steady stream of traffic is not the biggest challenge facing businesses along Florida Avenue in Seminole Heights. The roadway's uninviting nature has more to do with its lineup of used-car lots and tire stores, walled off by chain-linked, barbed-wire fences.

It makes no sense for the city to consider buying these two regional roadways, even if the DOT would agree to sell them, which it won't.

The needs of neighborhoods must be balanced with the needs of regional movement. Slowing traffic to a crawl might help some businesses, but it could also lead people to avoid the area altogether.

And if this region envisions rail transit one day, it must accept higher population densities - and the infrastructure that supports them.

The two-way crusade by Saul-Sena and Mulhern would stop downtown - and the case for rail transit - dead in their tracks.

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