On Tuesday night, the 16-person voting board of the Hillsborough Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) heard four hours of public comment and elected to keep the option of expanding Interstate 275 on the organization’s five-year Transportation Improvement Program (TIP).
The decision came in spite of a packed County Center in downtown Tampa, where a majority of the room (plus those in overflow seating) was against two interstate expansion projects on line 27 and 28 of the MPO’s five-year transportation plan for the county. One of the projects would add lanes to each side of I-275 between Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Bearss Avenue. The other adds a lane to the flyover ramp that connects Interstate 4 to southbound I-275.
The vote comes about a week after a survey of 401 Hillsborough County residents showed that 65% of them know absolutely nothing about plans to widen I-275 north of downtown Tampa.
Supporters of the expansion believe the projects will both alleviate congestion at the I-275/I-7 interchange known as malfunction junction and address safety issues for drivers. Opponents, many of whom support a no-build option, cite induced demand in explaining how building more lanes just puts more cars on the road and continues the cycle of endless highway construction at the cost of the neighborhoods around the highway.
Those opponents wonder why the MPO isn’t taking a more transit-oriented approach to addressing road congestion.
Tampa Bay Times reporter Caitlin Johnston (who pulled an all-nighter live Tweet-ing and then recapping the meeting) wrote that “the board's decision to keep both interstate changes in its plans came down to a distinction from Plant City Mayor Rick Lott that the vote would not guarantee the two projects would ever be funded or built, but that it did keep them as an option moving forward.”
The state has already committed $80 million for expanding I-275 to four lanes in each direction from Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd to Hillsborough Avenue. MPO board members argued that voting to keep the expansion on the TIP allows the county to keep looking for an additional $220 million for lanes that go up to Bearss Avenue, plus another $200 million to be used to add exits and lanes to malfunction junction.
Florida Department of Transportation secretary David Gwynn told the room that a vote to remove the additional lanes from the TIP would've prevented the state from moving forward with its plans north of the downtown interchange.
Tampa City Councilman Guido Mansicalco and County Commissioners Kimberly Overman, Mariella Smith, Les Miller, and Pat Kemp voted to remove lines 27 and 28 from the MPO’s five-year plan, but were outnumbered in the 11-5 vote.
Tampa City Councilmen Luis Viera and Joe Citro notably voted to keep those items on the TIP. Viera (who lives in the New Tampa community of Hunters Green, according to the City of Tampa website) represents District 7, where I-275 runs from the Busch Boulevard to Fowler Avenue; Citro’s seat is citywide. In online comments, Viera said that he voted for a study of the #BLVDTampa project that proposes replacing 11 miles of I-275 with a landscaped boulevard and that he supports mass transit.
“… we can not ignore incremental fixes to the methods of transportation that we presently use. I don’t think the two positions conflict,” Viera wrote, adding that he was compelled by the public safety arguments, which he could not ignore. “I can not turn down money for these fixes – money that if we turn down, will not be redirected to where we want…the issue has a lot of gray, and the plan as presented leaves a lot to be wanted, but a no vote leaves too much behind and takes a lot off the table.”
Critics of Viera’s vote, like Sunshine Citizens’ Chris Vela, argue that the councilman is choosing to subject residents who leave near the interchange to “poor air quality and blight with substantial higher cancer risks than other neighborhoods in Tampa and Hillsborough.”
Jason Ball, who runs the URBN Tampa Bay community, responded to Viera by saying, “I think you just hurt an innumerable number of the people in the city you were elected to serve.”
CL reached out to Citro, and also contacted Mayor Jane Castor’s office, for comment.
Follow @cl_tampabay on Twitter to get the most up-to-date news + views. Subscribe to our newsletter, too.
This article appears in Jun 6-13, 2019.