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State, City Diverge On Gall

Courtesy of Kimley-Horn and Associates

Zephyrhills officials want Gall Boulevard to look more like Fifth Avenue, with brick sidewalks, decorative streetlights and palm trees.

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By LAURA KINSLER | The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 3, 2008

Zephyrhills - Monday night's transportation workshop turned into a battle of the boulevards when city officials insisted on displaying their plan for a Gall Boulevard facelift.

The Florida Department of Transportation design would convert Gall, also known as U.S. 301, into a one-way street for northbound traffic. All southbound traffic would be diverted to Sixth Street, which already is one-way. Both streets eventually would be widened to three lanes.

"We are not opposed to the three-laning of Sixth Street," City Manager Steve Spina said. "Our main objection is the one-way traffic on Gall."

The city's plan would transform Gall into a small-town, main street road with wide brick sidewalks, landscaped medians, decorative streetlights and on-street parking. The city's design consultants will give a more detailed presentation at the Dec. 8 council meeting.

"It looks a lot like what we already have downtown," resident Marielle King observed.

Designer David Troemal said the city wants to create a "small city downtown" ambiance on its main commercial corridor.

Council members are scheduled to discuss the issue Monday. DOT project manager Waddah Farah said the city must accept the plan before engineers proceed with the design.

"If they don't want it, they don't want it," Farah said. "We need an answer. We've already been on hold for a while."

The DOT plan initially was approved in 2000. Public hearings were not well-attended, and the department received just 12 comments. Monday's informational workshop drew at least 200 residents, most of whom oppose the idea of making Gall a one-way street.

DOT officials initially told city representatives not to display their alternative design, saying it would confuse the residents to see competing plans. "They didn't even call us," project manager Gordana Jovanovic said.

Eventually, DOT officials relented, and gave the city a corner to set up the display. "It's a public meeting; we can't really say no," spokeswoman Marian Scorza said. "It will be confusing, but we'll get more input that way."

If the city council rejects the DOT design, it risks losing $31 million that is budgeted in 2013 to buy right of way. The funding was authorized for the DOT plan, which was approved by the Federal Highway Administration.

"It's not like they get to keep the money," Farah said. "They have to get in line behind everyone else."

DOT officials say they considered the city's proposal and rejected it. "We're not going to build something that doesn't work," Scorza said.

Some residents would rather leave the road as is than to accept the DOT plan.

"The city needs to step in and say, 'Sorry. We don't need that money,'" said Vicki Lewis, who has lived in her Sixth Street home for 49 years and doesn't want to move.

Norman Scheurerman, who owns a preschool on Sixth, also opposes the DOT plan.

"Why change something that obviously doesn't need to be fixed?" he asked.

Farah said the average person has trouble visualizing what traffic on Gall will be like in 15 or 20 years. The department's traffic models show that the road would become so congested it would take motorists 46 minutes to drive two miles.

With the parallel one-way streets, the same trip through town would be reduced to just more than three minutes.

Not everyone who came to the workshop was opposed to the DOT plan. Carl Trout and his wife, Roseta, live on an unpaved section of Sixth Street outside of the city limits.

"We'd like them to do it because of the dirt road," he said. "I'd rather have the traffic than the dust."

Kurth Sombutmai is in the process of buying a restaurant on Sixth. "I think it could be good for me," he said.

Reporter Laura Kinsler can be reached at (813) 865-4844.

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