The fight against highway expansion in Hillsborough County feels endless for transportation advocates, but they scored a small victory this month.
On June 10, Hillsborough County’s Transportation Planning Organization voted 8-6 to remove an Interstate-275 expansion between Hillsborough and Bearss Avenues from the Transportation Improvement Program (TIP).
The highway project—which sought to widen lanes for I-275 as a resolution for congestion issues—came before the Hillsborough TPO meeting this month as the board made decisions about whether to keep it on the TIP.
Widening proposals and plans from the Florida Department of Transportation have been a hot-button issue for transportation advocates for years who’ve long pushed back on highway expansion across various portions of the interstate, which cuts through neighborhoods like West Tampa and Seminole Heights.
The latest iteration of the Bearss-Hillsborough Avenue expansion project is ranked No. 53 on the 2025 iteration of the TPO’s FY2027-2031 priority list.
The TIP is a federally-mandated program that displays the projects within a five-year plan that receive funding for major roadway infrastructure projects. The expansion project currently has zero funding allocated for the improvement project.
Dayna Lazarus, an A.I.C.P. certified urban planner and co-founder of Transit Now Tampa Bay, serves on the Hillsborough TPO’s Citizens Advisory Committee (CAC), which overwhelmingly voted to remove the expansion from the TIP.
In public comment, she advocated for removing highway widening projects.
“They are extremely financially wasteful and further burden disproportionately Black and hispanic communities while decreasing system-wide safety and doing very little to circulate people around our communities or alleviate traffic,” she told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay.
She wasn’t the only person with a lot to say.
In public comment before the TPO board vote, Chris Vela, a CAC member said that since the ‘60s operational improvements to the highway since the ‘60s have “led to more crashes and congestion to the point where it looks like it hasn’t even left the era.”
Here’s how the TPO board voted on motions related to the Bearss-Hillsborough I-275 expansion
- During the June 10 meeting, the TPO board voted 6-8 to reject a motion by Hillsborough County Commissioner Josh Wostal, which sought to pass the TIP with the widening project on it.
- The next motion, to remove the single-lane Hillsborough-Bearss widening project from the TIP passed 8-6. No votes came from Wostal, Plant City Mayor Nathan Kilton, Port Tampa Bay’s Charles Klug, Tampa-HillsboroughExpressway Authority CEO Greg Slater, Planning Commission representative Nigel Joseph and Temple Terrace Mayor Andy Ross.
- A third motion to approve the amended tip passed 11-3. No votes included Wostal, Joseph, and Kilton.
In discussion before the votes, Mayor Kilton advocated for the projects, suggesting that the TPO board had two options.
“We can stop being awesome, or we can make sure that we meet the demands of our folks,” Kilton said before acknowledging dissenting voices from public comment.
“I feel very badly for the people that are right here in this community that are getting the most impacted by it, but at the end of the day, we all have to recognize that you have to get folks from North County, from East County, from South County, from St. Pete over into Tampa,” Kilton added.
In response, Tampa City Councilmember Lynn Hurtak, who has strongly advocated against the project in the past, agreed with Kilton about the county being awesome.
“We’re awesome at killing people,” Hurtak said. “We are the eighth highest, most dangerous places for pedestrians in the country”
Not everyone from public comment supported removing the expansion from the TIP.
Old Seminole Heights resident Keith Wagner wanted the project to move forward since it includes a large wall separating the neighborhood from the highway.
“Our physical safety is being completely ignored,” Wagner said. “Holding out for a perfect political compromise leaves my home and my neighbors entirely unprotected from errant vehicles. If state policy dictates that the only way to get a heavy duty concrete barrier wall built to shield our homes is to approve the widening project. Then I’m asking you to stop the gridlock, fund the project, and build the wall immediately.”
During the meeting, FDOT District Secretary Justin Hall told the TPO board that since the project has been removed from the TIP, adding it back on will require another vote.
If the project is approved for a federal grant, it will need to be re-introduced before the board for approval to move forward,” Hall added.
If approved the total cost estimate for the Hillsborough-Bearss expansion would be roughly $225 million dollars, according to a 2025 presentation.
The infrastructure project is a part of the Tampa Bay Next initiative spearheaded by the FDOT. The project was initially a part of the controversial $6 billion-dollar TBX program which was struck down in 2016 due to controversy surrounding tolled highways.
Lazarus said that while there are still close to a dozen highway-widening projects on the TIP, removing this one made the CAC feel more heard than it has in the last four years.
“Whether or not this is a victory for transportation as a whole, I wouldn’t go that far,” Lazarus added. “It’s not a leap, it’s a small step, and we have a lot of work to do. We hope the TPO board will commit to being a part of that community-driven process.”
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This article appears in June 18 – 24, 2026.