Remember that crazy-ass plan to tear down 11 miles of I-275 and replace it with a landscaped boulevard? Turns out that the idea of making way for more protected bike lanes, pedestrian paths and mass transit might be worth a deeper look.
At least that’s what officials at the Hillsborough County Metropolitan Planning Organization (Hillsborough MPO) think. At a Wednesday meeting, the MPO voted unanimously to go ahead with a study on the idea.
As CL pointed out last week, St. Petersburg-born architect and urban designer Josh Frank has been talking about an I-275 teardown and replacement. He calls his plan #BLVDTAMPA.
The 11-mile stretch on I-275 is between downtown and the USF area, and the roadway was recently named in a national “Freeways Without Futures” report by the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU). The CNU argues that I-275, along with roadways in nine other U.S. cities in the report, could be removed to make way for more cohesive, walkable, and equitable community development.
Frank is technically a citizen observer in the process now that the study is in the MPO’s hands, but on Thursday he told CL that talking about a teardown of I-275 is a good step towards actually coming up with an aspirational plan that actually addresses quality of life, mobility and the city’s identity.
“This is a vision that we’ve needed for a long time. As a city, state and country, really, we’ve been in accommodate mode the last half-century,” Frank said.
In a statement forwarded to CL, MPO executive director Beth Alden explained her board’s decision to support the Citizens Advisory Committee request to study the feasibility of creating a boulevard where I-275 currently runs through Tampa Heights, Seminole Heights, and other neighborhoods north of I-4.
“Other cities such as Rochester, NY and Dallas, TX — with the support of their State Departments of Transportation — have looked at removing freeway overpasses when they come to the end of their structural life, or digging a trench for the freeway with a platform for redevelopment on top,” Alden wrote, adding that a new plan could be a long range proposition.
In a phone call, with CL, Aldren referenced Boston, perhaps alluding to its Big Dig project. Most estimates say that project cost more than $23 billion.
It’s important to note that Frank’s #BLVDTAMPA makes no mention of tunneling, or the cut-and-cover method that calls for the excavation of shallow tunnels that get roofed over.
“Yes, a tunnel option of some kind would allow I-275 to continue to exist as a freeway, while the neighborhood is rebuilt above,” Alden told CL, adding that Frank’s concept, in contrast, does propose removing the freeway altogether.
“Both concepts have been looked at in other cities,” she added
Still, Alden’s statement says that the MPO’s view on the longer-range future starts with the board getting answers to questions about whether or not the cut-and-cover option is feasible for Tampa and its high water table. It wonders about price tags and if the cost could be justified by the potential economic development.
“It could take decades to do feasibility studies, create engineered plans, and line up hundreds of millions of dollars for construction,” Aldren added, “and so this study is no reason not to move forward with some modest fixes for immediate problems on this portion of I-275.”
That notion of modest fixes to problems seems juxtaposed to Frank’s idea that a trend of repairing interstates or expanding them has to be addressed 10 years later when cars clog the lanes once again.
“If we keep doing the same thing, then we’ll be stuck in the same loop,” Frank said.
Alden admits that there are many questions to answer if the MPO’s insistence of exploring cut-and-cover options determines that it won’t be feasible.
“Where would traffic go if I-275 is no longer a freeway, and are there adequate ways to mitigate that impact, such as investing in other roads and/or rapid transit systems,” she said, alluding to the argument that the traffic has to go somewhere.
At a recent Tampa Heights Civic Association presentation, Frank told a story of a traffic engineer who told him that removing I-275 was like squeezing a full water balloon. The engineer said the water inside of the balloon would simply expand it until it popped.
“I laughed and replied that I wasn’t trying to squeeze the balloon,” Frank said, adding that he’s trying to get people to take less trips, carpool, ride bikes, walk or use public transportation. “I’m trying to reduce the amount of water inside.”
“The big question we’re facing is how do we keep people moving while creating a city that is as liveble and attractive as possible,” Alden told CL.
“We’ll be looking into [these questions] over the next calendar year,” Alden said, “and bringing our findings back to the MPO Board to consider whether further steps are worthwhile.”
Here’s hoping that the MPO considers the best options and, more importantly, makes the community (and maybe even Frank?), part of the decision-making process, too.
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This article appears in May 9-16, 2019.
