Thursday, August 09, 2007

Two-faced Tampa

In a prior conversation, a little research showed quite a change of opinions between babied traffic projects for downtown vs. ignored projects for the "Heights" areas.

Twiggs Street Project — Second Downtown Two-Way Street Conversion Completed
"Spanning from Ashley Drive to Morgan Street, this is the second east/west street in the downtown area being converted from a one-way to a two-way configuration. The project will improve the overall efficiency of the circulation of traffic downtown and create a more pedestrian friendly environment."

vs.

No 2 Ways About It - (Tampa and Seminole Heights)
"The department study says converting the roads to two-way traffic will cause lengthy backups at intersections and increase the number of accidents from cars making left turns across traffic."

Politics and flip-flopping to get what they want. In Tampa? What a surprise.

And I love how we are put second to finances:
"Doing the project right would mean doubling the width of the roads and force the department to buy rights of way from residents and businesses."

Yeah -- why would you ever want to do the project right when it's north of downtown Tampa; instead of west or south? Very transparent. Very sad ......

1 comment:

Greg B. said...

I understand exactly what you are saying but the big difference in those streets is that the east/west downtown streets are city run streets and Fla/Neb and Hills are all FDOT run streets and their focus is to move traffic plain and simple - too bad if it goes through a neighborhood and be damed if it may slow traffic and make it a more ped friendly throughfare.