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A Plan To Ease Traffic Raises Ire

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By TOM BRENNAN, The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 10, 2007

BLOOMINGDALE - It seems so easy on an aerial map.

Just draw a line a few millimeters long connecting two dead-end roads, and you create a transportation corridor.

The problem comes at ground level when you have to factor in such things as topography and the people living along those two roads.

Carolyn Petrizzo and her neighbors in surrounding subdivisions are livid about a proposal to link John Moore and Bell Shoals roads by extending John Moore to Apache Lane in the Indian Hills subdivision.

'We're pretty flipped out over it and are all in strong opposition,' said Petrizzo, president of the Dogwood Hills Homeowners Association.

The proposal is part of a list of ideas in the South County Transportation Study, a blueprint aiming to identify ways to ease traffic congestion in that part of the county in the next 40 to 45 years.

Even though references to south county usually conjure images of Ruskin, Apollo Beach and other points south, the study examined everything south of Bloomingdale Avenue.

The John Moore extension got little notice as the study wound its way through committee meetings and public workshops starting in May. It was lost among more controversial schemes, including a bypass connecting Interstates 75 and 4 somewhere between Brandon and Plant City and new bridge crossings over the Alafia River.
Alert residents found the John Moore extension listed as item No. 62 in the study's list of final recommendations, but only days before the Planning Commission was to consider it and weeks before the county commission was to vote on it.

The vote has been rescheduled for early 2008, giving both residents and those behind the study a chance to re-examine the extension.

'These are only preliminary recommendations,' said Keli Paul, project manager for Tallahassee-based Cambridge Systematics, the consultant hired by the county to handle the project. 'We will go back to the community to get feedback and revise the recommendations based on what we hear.'

The first of those meetings will be this month.

Planners should get an earful from those living along John Moore and Apache Lane.

'We can't get out now on John Moore because of all the people already using our neighborhood as a cut-through,' said Richard Reynolds, who lives on Wild Oak Drive. 'I can't believe they want to increase traffic on it.'

Reynolds and others contend the extension would only become a way for commuters from FishHawk Ranch and other developments to the south to avoid the traffic on Bell Shoals and Bloomingdale, especially once Bell Shoals is widened to four lanes.

'It would be just monstrous,' said Mildred Hicks, who lives in Bloomingdale West. 'John Moore is only two lanes. We are already queued-up when we are trying to get out.'

Paul said the transportation study sought ways to get traffic off existing roads. She said the goal was to find connectivity in the road system, and looking at an aerial photograph of the area, linking John Moore and Apache Lane seemed natural.

'It seemed like a very small segment - a gap in the roadway,' she said.

Paul said computer models showed connecting the two roads would add about 1,000 cars daily by 2050.
Petrizzo said it is a logical misconception.

'From just looking at a map, it makes perfect sense,' she said. 'It is only when you do some further investigation and realize that it is in a flood zone, it is in a conservation area.

'You don't go pushing traffic from a major county road onto residential roads.'
Petrizzo said she and others along the route are organizing to fight any connection between John Moore Road and Apache Lane. They have Paul's attention.

'I don't think this project is going to make it,' she predicted.

IF YOU GO

WHAT: Public meetings on the South County Transportation Plan

WHEN/WHERE: 6:30-8:30 p.m. Oct. 23, South Shore Regional Service Center, 410 30th St. S.E., Ruskin; 6:30-8:30 p.m. Oct. 24, Riverview High School cafeteria, 11311 Boyette Road, Riverview

CONTACT: Go to www.hillsboroughcounty.org/pgm and click on the South County Transportation Plan link under current news or call Ned Baier at (813) 272-5849

Reporter Tom Brennan can be reached at (813) 657-4528 or tbrennan@tampatrib.com.

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