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New Traffic Light Will Ease Wesley Chapel Congestion

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By KEVIN WIATROWSKI | The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 15, 2009

WESLEY CHAPEL - The growing flood of drivers traveling between homes in northern Hillsborough County and shopping in southern Pasco County will soon find one more obstacle in their path: a new traffic signal at Williamsburg Drive and Bruce B. Downs Boulevard.

Pasco County officials will open bids this afternoon for the installation of the new signal, the fourth on the mile-long stretch between County Line Road and State Road 56.

Traffic has been steadily worsening in this part of central Pasco for years, thanks to the thousands of new residents moving in and the growing number of shopping destinations cropping up to serve the area's expanding population.

The new traffic signal is needed to ease the bottlenecks being driven by the Shoppes at New Tampa plaza on the south side of S.R. 56 and the nearby Shoppes at Wiregrass mall.

The signal was part of a deal struck last year between the developers building the eastern extension of S.R. 56 and Publix, which anchors the Shoppes at New Tampa plaza.

The eastern extension of S.R. 56, a county-mandated project to ease congestion in the area and allow access to the Wiregrass mall, closed a temporary entrance to the Shoppes at New Tampa.

Over the objections of residents, county officials chose to redirect southbound traffic – cars as well as delivery trucks – out Williamsburg Drive, which borders the plaza to the south. Those southbound drivers can include many people from the northern reaches of Tampa for whom the Publix and Shops at Wiregrass are the nearest shopping venues.

The new signal will give drivers at Williamsburg a controlled way onto Bruce B. Downs. Right now, drivers are waiting longer and longer for breaks to merge into the Bruce B. Downs traffic.

After the bids for the new traffic signal are opened, they'll go through a review. The winning bid will go to county commissioners for approval before work begins, said Bob Reck, the county's director of traffic operations.

Reporter Kevin Wiatrowski can be reached at (813) 948-4201.

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