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Expensive Road Study Defies Logic

The Tampa Tribune (Florida)

January 11, 2009

Hillsborough County appears to have wasted $500,000 in studying the widening of a rural section of Lithia-Pinecrest Road southeast of Brandon that the county now says it has no intention of actually widening.

The confusing decision in a county with a backlog of transportation needs is an example of why so many taxpayers think their money is being misspent and suburban growth mismanaged. We wonder how much of this sort of planning is going on around the state.

State and county officials blame a federal rule for requiring them to study a 3.7-mile section of the two-lane road that the county's own growth plans say should remain two-lane.

Another busier portion of the road - a stretch of about seven miles from State Road 60 to the FishHawk Boulevard - is congested and accident-prone. Widening that portion to four lanes, or possibly six, is controversial with area residents but certainly worth investigating. The estimated construction costs for widening Lithia-Pinecrest all the way to Pinecrest is about $500 million.

That's one reason having a consultant continue the study far outside the urban service boundary is bewildering. The entire Lithia-Pinecrest study cost $2.5 million, with about 20 percent of the cost devoted to the Pinecrest end. That area, about nine miles south of Plant City, is presently off limits to the sort of dense suburban development that has happened in Brandon, Valrico and Bloomingdale.

Why study it in such detail? Bob Gordon, head of the county's department of public works, said he trusted the advice of the state's highway engineers, who know how federal rules are applied. In 2005, county commissioners approved the entire study with minimal debate and no objections.

There's more to the mystery. The study of that section, from the FishHawk development east to County Road 39, concluded it should become a major highway. Extrapolating an annual growth rate of 1.2 percent for 30 years found that the country road should be a six-lane divided highway, wider than some portions of busy I-75 are today.

Upon hearing that, residents in the area were stunned. Community activists, including Kelly Cornelius of Lithia, were outraged. Three county commissioners - Rose Ferlita, Mark Sharpe, and Kevin Beckner - sharply questioned county staffers and the consultant, HDR, about the process that led to a recommendation to build something the county can't possibly afford, something the county's own growth rules wouldn't allow, and something residents of the area don't want.

Their answer is that to qualify for possible federal assistance, they were forced to study areas farther out that might be affected by additional traffic. Engineers for the state Department of Transportation tell us the explanation is correct. Truck traffic on Lithia-Pinecrest is expected to increase, but engineers mostly blame federal rules they find hard to explain.

"All of a sudden this (six-lane road) appears and ...don't worry, because we really don't mean it," Ferlita told Gordon. "It's like smoke and mirrors."

It's also a lot of money. Local customers had to buy about $145 million in taxable goods to raise $500,000 from the portion of the half-cent Community Investment Tax devoted to infrastructure and safety.

Gordon told us he doesn't think a mistake was made, but that the federal rule "doesn't make a lot of sense."

We tracked down the rule, which seems more flexible than described by state engineers. It is designed to discourage the use of federal money on projects that underestimate environmental impacts.

A county can't, for example, exclude study of a two-lane bridge in the middle of a four-laning project if it expects to get federal aid. But it would be allowed to set the limits of a road study at the last major traffic generator, such as a subdivision at the edge of town.

And if the widening is to relieve a safety hazard, "almost any termini can be chosen." Many accidents on the congested portions of Lithia-Pinecrest are part of the justification for making it wider and safer.

It seems to us a bigger impact from a six-lane Lithia-Pinecrest would be on the Tampa side of the project, specifically the four-lane sections of Bloomingdale and Lumsden avenues, not the side leading to farms and phosphate mines.

A federal highway official told us that no part of the Lithia-Pinecrest project so far is scheduled to get federal funds. Federal officials did not set the limits of the study, he said, but the project has been given a categorical exclusion, which means its widening would cause no significant environmental impacts.

Gordon says no county funds are available to start construction. Today's modest plan is to someday widen Lithia-Pinecrest to four lanes from Highway 60 to Bloomingdale and have a two-lane enhanced road from Bloomingdale to FishHawk.

But if the county decides to build one of its biggest roads through one of its smallest communities, environmentally it's ready to go.