TAMPA — The Florida Department of Transportation has its sights set on Tampa’s major thoroughfares. While there are several projects FDOT is working on this year, there are four main ones.
The Downtown Tampa Interchange project:
The project's goal is to make several improvements along the I-275 and I-4 interchange. Crews are working on adding a lane throughout the area to help with traffic movement and reduce the crash count.
“It’s very important for traffic in the area. We’re going to be adding essentially an additional lane of capacity to most of the major movements here in the interchange, which will help thru-put as well as helping to reduce the congestion that can lead to crashes,” said Austin Petersen, construction project manager for FDOT.
They’re about halfway done and will complete the project in 2027.
“As you’re driving, you’ll see we’re starting to do a lot more construction on the interstate area itself. We started the project mostly in kind of the arterial local roadways but we’re starting to do work on the interstate. Going to have some traffic shifts people need to be aware of. Watching their speeds as they’re driving through the work zones so that they can follow the signs and pay attention to what we’re doing,” said Petersen.
The new Howard Frankland Bridge:
Construction started on this projectin the spring of 2020.
“The main goal is also to improve the operations of traffic moving across the bay and provide more dependable, reliable commute time for riders,” said Petersen.
It’s expected to fully wrap up in early 2026. FDOT will start switching traffic to the new bridge this spring.
“In the final configuration, you’ll have the new bridge will have four general purpose lanes, that’ll go towards Pinellas County. And we’ll also have two express lanes in both directions towards Pinellas County, towards Tampa and there will be a lot more capacity and opportunity for drivers,” said Petersen.
I-275 Capacity Improvement project:
This project will go from north of I-4 to north of Hillsborough Avenue. It’ll go from 3 travel lanes to 4 in each direction.
“That will be four lanes in both northbound and southbound directions from approximately just north of the downtown interchange to Hanna,” said Petersen.
Crews are in the final phase of this project, and drivers will soon notice the changes on their commute.
“As we’re kind of wrapping here, commuters can start to see that we’re going to be opening sections of I-275 to the additional 4th lane,” said Petersen.
Tampa’s Westshore Interchange project:
This is FDOT’s largest job in Tampa ever.
“It’s a big job. It’s a billion-dollar project, and it’s a very complex interchange with a lot of bridges,” said Zachary Stringer, special projects construction manager for FDOT.
Construction is set to begin this spring, revamping how people move through the area.
“We’re currently in the design phase. We’ve been in the design phase since early 2023. We had a planning phase, then we’re in what’s called pre-construction, and we’ll get into actual construction on some early projects in spring of 2025,” said Stringer.
Because it’s such a big project, it will take 8 years to complete, so crews hope to wrap up around 2031 or 2032.
“First and foremost, it’s a safety project. It’s going to fix some tricky weaves that exist right now. You think about coming up 60, trying to get over to the airport, it’ll fix that. Additionally, if you’re coming up 275, trying to get over to 60, so there’s some spots that we’re going to improve and make the decision points a little earlier and more user friendly. Then also some choke points like the loop for people coming down 60 going to 275 north, so that will relieve some of that congestion we’re going to get rid of the loop ramp and make it a curved flyover,” said Stringer.
“One other thing this job is going to do to benefit the area is it’s going to connect communities that were separated by 275 previously,” he added.
As more people have moved to Tampa Bay in recent years, the worse congestion has become. That’s the purpose behind all of these projects: improving traffic flow and safety.
“We definitely need capacity improvements, need these safety and operation improvements to make sure that traffic is flowing effectively,” said Petersen.
FDOT wants to remind drivers to drive slowly through construction zones and follow the signs, to keep crews safe.
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