HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — Kathleen Crowder would like to spend more time with her pup at their favorite Temple Terrace dog park, but sometimes, much of their day is spent stuck in traffic on nearby I-75.
“Especially if there’s, you know, a wreck or something, yeah, it gets really bad,” she said.
John Flynt Thomas, who also lives in the Temple Terrace area, gets stuck in the same congestion many days too.
“Oh, it’s bad. It is really bad,” he said. “They need to do something. I don’t know what.”
They say one of the worst spots is the stretch between the Tampa Bypass Canal and just south of Fowler Avenue.
“It just seems to pile up, sometimes, for no reason,” said Thomas.
Relief, however, could be on the horizon and arriving sooner than expected.
In a meeting on Jan. 10, the Hillsborough County Transportation Planning Organization (TPO) Board will consider an amendment that, if approved, would expedite a project to widen that stretch of I-75 by adding a lane to both the northbound and southbound sides.
“This should alleviate congestion quite a bit,” said Johnny Wong, the executive director of the TPO.
Wong said the work would happen within the existing right-of-way and wouldn’t require acquiring any private property.
It will require roughly $50 million to complete, which is about $8.5 million more than the county estimated last year.
“That $8.5 additional million — part of it is a function of inflation and just price increase for every aspect of project delivery,” he said.
However, he thinks the widening is badly needed, and neighbors like Thomas and Crowder think so too.
“I think that would be great,” said Crowder. “I think that would help out a lot.”
If the project is approved in the vote next week, Wong said work could begin at the end of this year and take about a year to complete.
Before next week’s vote, county transportation planners want to hear from you. You can contact the TPO in several ways:
- Email to tpo@plancom.org
- Mail to Hillsborough TPO, Attn: Cheryl Wilkening, 601 E. Kennedy Blvd., 18th Floor, Tampa 33602
- Voicemail one week in advance of the meeting to 813-272-5940 (press 9)
- Social media by posting on the TPO Facebook page
