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Riverview Faces Long Stretch Ahead

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By SUSAN M. GREEN, The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 12, 2007

Updated: 09/10/2007 06:11 pm

RIVERVIEW - Barrels and barricades on U.S. 301 at Gibsonton Drive give motorists a taste of what hitting the highway will be like for the next three years, as state officials prepare to launch a long-awaited widening project.

It can't come too soon for Dennis Stevens.

'I'll gladly put up with the construction in order to see it widened,' said the retiree, who has lived in Panther Trace, off U.S. 301 and south of Symmes Road, for about three years. 'I'm looking forward to it getting completed.'

In his youth, Stevens lived in Chicago. Before his retirement, he commuted daily from northwestern Indiana to the Windy City. Rush-hour traffic on the lanes used by commuters from Riverview, Lithia, Gibsonton and points south to access Interstate 75 is as snarled as anything he saw around the Midwestern metropolis he grew up in, he said.

Technically, the work north and south of the intersection at Gibsonton Drive is part of improvements required for the Lowe's shopping center, not the upcoming widening of U.S. 301 from two to six lanes.

Officials expect to put the first phase of that project - the 6-mile stretch from Gibsonton Drive south to County Road 672 - out to bid this fall. Construction is estimated to cost about $83 million. If bids come in as expected, work could start in spring, said Gordana Jovanovic, project manager for the Florida Department of Transportation.

The money is in the bank, thanks to what officials describe as a groundbreaking cooperative agreement between the state, county and developers who contributed to the kitty.

'As far as we are concerned at DOT, we are ready,' Jovanovic said.

The pooling of funding jump-started a project that normally would have taken up to 10 years to get through planning, studies and design to construction, Jovanovic said. She was put to work on the project in its infancy three years ago. The design was completed in July.

'There is always a way to do things bigger, better,' she said. 'There is no way to do it faster than this way.'

The new road may not be top of the line, but it will have features only recently introduced to southern Hillsborough County.

'It's a six-lane facility with a multiuse trail on the east side and a sidewalk on the other,' Jovanovic said, noting that the highway will look a lot like four-lane Bruce B. Downs Boulevard in the Tampa Palms area, except it will be wider. State Road 674 through Sun City Center has a multiuse trail, but it has been dedicated to golf carts, Jovanovic said.

The trail planned for U.S. 301 is intended for use by joggers, hikers and people on bicycles, skates or skateboards. Roadsides will include lanes and shelters where public buses can pull out of travel lanes to load or unload passengers.

A median 22-feet wide will stretch the length of the highway, and the sidewalk and shared-use trail will be separated from the road by grassy swales.

Work will start with adding northbound lanes, allowing motorists to continue using the existing thoroughfare until the new stretch on the east side is completed, Jovanovic said. Then motorists will switch to the new lanes while the existing road is transformed into three southbound lanes. Officials don't anticipate closing the road.

The project manager couldn't say where in the 6-mile stretch construction will begin. She said that decision usually is left to the contractor, who makes plans based on costs and other factors.

She noted that the initial segment includes at least three spans: a bridge over Tadpole Creek near Cowley Road and pavement across two culverts.

Intersection improvements at Gibsonton Drive may have to be tweaked again, she said. State road planners met with the Lowe's developer and made some changes before work started this summer, but the widening plans hadn't been completed.

Jan Dunlap, who has lived in Riverview north of the Alafia for 18 years, said she does business in south Riverview and Wimauma and used to travel U.S. 301 daily.

'But not now,' she said.

The barricades extending south from Gibsonton Drive and the steady stream of traffic that bottlenecks where the road slims to two lanes were the last straw. She takes Interstate 75 when she has to head south.

'I know it's out of my way, but I'll get there just as fast or faster,' she said.

She and Stevens blamed bumper-to-bumper traffic for many of the car accidents on the highway.

Stevens said his wife, Judy, was driving him home from the hospital about eight months ago when the couple's vehicle was rear-ended after they stopped at a light behind a long line of cars. He said drivers see a traffic light ahead in the distance and aren't expecting to have to stop so soon.

'I blame the buildup of traffic, in part, for that particular accident,' Stevens said.

He and Dunlap said with so many subdivisions in the works south of Symmes Road and south of County Road 672, traffic conditions will only get worse.

Plans call for widening the highway another 4 miles south from C.R. 672 to State Road 674 in the next five years. County and state officials are hoping to secure funding through the same type of partnership with developers. County officials also are seeking grants for the second leg of the project, estimated to cost more than $50 million.

Dunlap said the highway should have been widened in increments a long time ago.

'We'll be glad when it's done,' she said.

Reporter Susan M. Green can be reached at (813) 865-1566 or sgreen@tampatrib.com.

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