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City Wants To Keep Gall 2-Way

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By LAURA KINSLER

lkinsler@tampatrib.com

Published: November 8, 2008

ZEPHYRHILLS - The Florida Department of Transportation is reviving a 7-year-old plan to convert Gall Boulevard into a one-way street through town.

The project is aimed at alleviating congestion between State Road 39 and North Avenue. The state would limit traffic on Gall Boulevard to northbound vehicles and would raise the speed limit from 35 mph to 45 mph. All southbound traffic on U.S. 301 would be diverted to Sixth Street.
Zephyrhills desperately needs improvements to the congested road - its main north-south thoroughfare - but city and business leaders have opposed the idea of making Gall Boulevard a one-way street. The message this time from the DOT is clear: Take it or leave it.

The department already has $31 million budgeted in 2013 to start buying the right of way to extend Sixth Street and for drainage ponds. Construction would cost an estimated $40 million and would start in 2015.
Zephyrhills City Manager Steve Spina has been meeting with DOT officials since the agency unveiled its plan in 2001, trying to get them to keep two-way traffic on Gall Boulevard. City leaders wanted to preserve Gall Boulevard as a main corridor and shift the U.S. 301 traffic onto Sixth and Seventh streets, which were converted to one-way streets in 1996.

"We didn't want to appear ungrateful," Spina said. "We know there's a traffic problem. They're looking at it from a transportation point of view - and that's their job. They want to move as many vehicles as possible as quickly as possible."

City officials want to protect their main business corridor.
DOT officials proposed a compromise. The original plan called for widening both one-way roads to three lanes, but DOT project manager Gordana Jovanovic said the department would wait until 2025 to widen the roads.

Jovanovic and other DOT officials will present the new plan to the city council at a 5 p.m. workshop before its Monday meeting.

"We're trying to do some tweaks," Jovanovic said. "We want to help Zephyrhills achieve the goal of having a nice community. We include the urban corridor streetscape with benches and landscaping."

The design also includes bike lanes, decorative sidewalks and safer pedestrian crossings. The department would also improve or rebuild several key intersections.

Todd Vande Berg, the city's development director, said he wants the DOT to go ahead and acquire the needed right of way, but he doesn't support the state's design. Council members also have publicly opposed the idea of one-way traffic on Gall Boulevard.

Councilwoman Jodi Wilkeson said the proposal would destroy the city's main business corridor.

"The minute you take it one-way, you cut their customers' exposure in half," she said.

Jovanovic disagrees. Shifting U.S. 301 traffic onto Sixth and Seventh streets - as city officials prefer - would "kill all the businesses" on Gall, she said.

The DOT has not held a public hearing on the U.S. 301 widening proposal since 2001. At the time, only 12 comments were received, and they were equally divided. The department also held a series of meetings and hearings in 1999 and 2000.

Business owner Rick Southard, whose tattoo shop is on Gall Boulevard, sees both sides of the argument.

"It would be good for the traffic but bad for my business," he said.

Krysti Caropelo, who manages the Subway sandwich shop on Gall Boulevard, said she worries more about the increased speed than the one-way traffic.

"I would be against it," she said. "It's such a busy road, and there are so many children who cross Gall to go to the middle school. Just the other day, there were two accidents right outside my store."

Jovanovic said that if the city and business community don't agree to the compromise plan, the funding would be off the table because the current design has already cleared the Federal Highway Administration.

"If businesses want to change the design, we would have to start over," she said. "We cannot deviate from the plan, or we would lose all the federal funding. We'd have to go back to the drafting board."

That doesn't leave a lot of room for negotiating.

"In a sense, they have us over a barrel," Spina said. "It's their way or the highway - or I should say no highway - pardon the pun."

BY THE NUMBERS

1.8 length of the project in miles

71 cost in millions for construction and right of way acquisition

2025 year both roads would be widened to three lanes

27,100 number of vehicles driving south on Sixth Street by 2030

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

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