WESLEY CHAPEL, Fla. — Pasco County officials are planning to expand a nearly 3.5-mile stretch of Wesley Chapel Boulevard to six lanes.
Officials said the project is long overdue because the road to the North and South is already six lanes.
"The first segment is from this area here [near Pondside Drive] to north on Magnolia Boulevard. We're going to go from two lanes to six lanes," said Panos Kontses, Assistant County Engineer. "And then that's about 2.9 miles, and then from there, from North of Magnolia Road toward Old Pasco Road, we're gonna put two lanes and a median, and because it's already four lanes, so that's point six miles distance."
Along with expanding the road, you'll see safer options for pedestrians, like a multi-use path, sidewalk, and bike lanes.
Officials are also adding a median where left turns will be restricted to certain locations.
"Over the last two decades, we've seen explosive growth in this area. Our original projections were like 420 to 1,000 cars a day, and that was back in 2008. Then the new regional transportation model became available in 2014 and showed us that it would be over two and a half to two and a half times higher. So it will be like 50 to 52,000 cars a day. So, we had to change our plans from a four-lane road to a six-lane road. So that shows how much this area is growing," explains Kontses.
Construction is expected to start in August and will take about three years to complete.
The total cost is $95 million.
