TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Suncoast Pasco News

Better Than Nothing

ADVERTISEMENT

THE SUNCOAST NEWS

Published: November 19, 2008

As anyone who has lived in West Pasco a long time knows, when it comes to making U.S. 19 less of a pain to drive on, nothing is ever easy. That appears to be the case again as the Florida Department of Transportation looks to ease traffic flow along the congested six-lane section of the highway in West Pasco by adding a pair of right-turn-only lanes to it.

As the Pasco County Metropolitan Planning Organization heard last week, however, DOT's plans for the turn-lane project don't have most of New Port Richey in mind. No right-turn lanes would be built from Gulf Drive in the south to near Ridge Road in the north.

According to DOT's District 7 planning manager, the reason for the omission is, not surprisingly, money. DOT engineers have come up with a method of creating an extra lane on each side of the highway without having to acquire right-of-way land. Buying right of way is often one of the costliest items in a road project's budget. Unfortunately, this method won't work inside the more urbanized New Port Richey area, Clifford says.

Even without the lanes in New Port Richey the project will cost around $25 million. That is a lot of money at any time, but it is even more so in this period of falling government revenue.

So at this point we may have to take what we can get when it comes to improvements to U.S. 19.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT