HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — The Florida Department of Transportation is moving into the next phase of a project that aims to improve safety on Fowler Avenue in Tampa.
FDOT said 2015 to 2019, they saw 3,320 crashes from North Florida Avenue to the west of North 56th Street. That's why they're working to improve safety for everyone who uses Fowler Avenue.
“Safety was the main primary factor of the study, and also transit and increasing multi-modal access along the corridor too," Craig Fox with FDOT said.
Fox explained the design they chose will widen the sidewalks, add mid-block pedestrian crossings and install new signals to improve pedestrian safety. It will also repurpose the outer lanes for buses and cars to make right turns.
“The outside lanes on Fowler Avenue are going to become bus-only lanes except when vehicles can use it to make wide turns into businesses and intersections,” Fox said.
He explained that a portion of the project is dependent on HART's ability to maintain that bus route. Fox said the project will cost around 25 million dollars, and the design phase will take about two years.
Click here to read more about the safety data on Fowler Avenue. Click here for the project plans.
