Traffic (or relative lack thereof)
Somewhere up north, there´s a couple talking about retiring. ¨How ´bout St. Petersburg, Enid?¨ Art says, and Enid responds, ¨Nah, Art, we don´t wanna move to a place with a bunch of young people having a lot of fun. Let´s go someplace quiet.¨ By now, St. Pete´s turnaround from the land of green benches and cataract glasses to a place of vibrant youth is well entrenched. The downtown is thriving, developers have been steadily sprucing up the blighted spots, Midtown is starting to get some love and even the Devil Rays (as of this writing) are playing surprisingly well. So what other praise can we heap on the Bay area´s It Town? Despite all the growth, traffic still moves pretty damn smoothly. U.S. 19 doesn´t get jammed up until the Park Boulevard junction in Pinellas Park; the road then gets progressively worse as you drive north to Largo, Clearwater and beyond. Main arteries like Fourth and 66th streets get congested but rarely oppressive. Likewise, the Central/First avenues N. and S. thoroughfare moves along quite nicely. Even rush-hour traffic on I-275 rarely slows to a crawl. Whaddya know: A small city that´s getting better all the time is even spared a lot of traffic hassles. It almost doesn´t seem fair.
This article appears in Sep 22-28, 2004.