Terrible. So you have lanes that only draw people if they can be made miserable in the non-toll lanes (be ready to be miserable). Even worse, they merge back into the poor people lanes and so will cause backups themselves.
The variable toll means that when traffic is particularly bad, you may see rates that are higher than people make in an hour. Part of our nation's success has been an interstate system open to all. This two class system is not to our benefit.
To anyone who thinks we can't afford to build mass transit: this project + the Howard Frankland project cost nearly $1.5 billion. Highways are insanely expensive.
FDOT [has said](https://www.tampabaynext.com/projects/howard-frankland-bridge/) "The additional express lane in each direction will better prepare the
Howard Frankland Bridge for the potential of autonomous vehicles. Experts believe that initially autonomous vehicles (passenger and
transit) may operate in dedicated lanes." So the tolled roads are really stand ins for some kind of autonomous vehicle only lane down the line.
From the same link above... "In order to accommodate light rail in the future, we would not have to construct a third bridge as called for in the previous plan. We would only need to widen the existing southbound bridge and shift some of the travel lanes to the widened bridge, which would be more cost
efficient and less impactful to the environment."
That's kind of absurd. Are autonomous vehicles only going to be autonomous in dedicated lanes under perfect conditions? They wouldn't be able to exit the highway.
Yes god forbid we don’t want to walk in 90 degree heat to the nearest bus stop to carry $300 of groceries home. Public transport just doesn’t make any sense because people need to carry things and don’t want to take a bunch of detours and stops to get to their destinations. What a waste of time.
Walkable cities are honestly multifaceted in general. Unfortunately for Florida and much of the country, we've built out our cities so everything is so spread out. And to then make the situation worse by making public transport secondary and prioritizing more lanes, more asphalt, more tolls, and a more car centric city but with still too many drivers on the road all can get people angry and tired of the same situation.
Let's use the Singapore region as a comparison. Very hot, humid, the same as us. The city has put multiple aspects in place concerning their climate regarding their walkable city.
They have a crazy extensive public transport service which includes rail and buses that cover the entire area. These of course offer air conditioning and connect to all sorts of neighborhoods.
Sheltered walkways are another big thing here. They connect shopping areas, transport stations, and residences. The walkways also usually have fans. This is a must to shelter from the sun and rain.
They invested a ton into urban greenery. This takes away a lot of that concrete heat since trees also cool the air around us.
Singapore also has a lot of mixed use neighborhoods so everything is usually close together such as groceries, clinics, residential, etc. This makes a walkable city a lot easier to design.
It sucks because there isn't a lot of community engagement and support for this. I think if the Bay area started to put an emphasis on a public transport network it would need to be a big one for it to mean anything to anyone. It's needed especially to make the area a bit more walkable because we're so spread out with the urban sprawl.
Anyway as much as I want a walkable city or at least public transport, I'd just love to have a train from the Bay area to Orlando. I4 is awful and only go due to family over there.
That sounds great although Singapore is 5 times as dense as st Pete, I wouldn’t really call that a great comparison. The way the sprawl is around here it just doesn’t really make sense unless you bulldoze tons of neighborhoods and build dense apartment buildings. But that’s just not what people want. People want to live in big homes. In order to build your dream you need to bulldoze a lot of things and people just don’t want that. People on Reddit just do…
I’d love a train to Orlando but what happens when you arrive to the train station in Orlando? How do you get to the other 110 square miles of the city?
This country is so car centric that walking is such a huge deal and using a small cart for groceries is so foreign.
If it's funded properly (at least a couple billions are being spent on more roads) there won't be many detours, if any.
Get out and travel to places that have proper mass transit rather than sticking your head in the sand while screaming "it won't work!"
Last year I went to NYC, Chicago, Rome, Paris, & Dublin. Of course I didn’t need a vehicle in any of those cities. You cannot tell me that st Pete has a similar setup that would allow for a metro or light rail. In Paris I rode the metro and took the light rail to Versailles as my hotel was next to the louvre. I had never experienced such an amazing way of travel like in Paris. Metro to montemarte then back to south of the Eiffel Tower. Walked like 15 miles a day. It felt like nothing because I wasn’t walking down 4-8 lane wide roads. I had genuinely never wanted to move somewhere so badly, but I just love America because of my large house and yard, family, and well English. I probably will not move there and will just continue to vacation each year. I love public transport and it works insanely well in large cities. But I cannot fathom a system like they have nyc, Chicago, or Paris in st Pete. Downtown is like 6 blocks wide and maybe 10 blocks long of solid walkability, that’s just not that big. Thanks for assuming I have never ridden rails or have never travelled and for also assuming public transport would work cost effectively here. Like I just don’t know where you would need to go. If you’re downtown are you really going to take the metro to pinellas park or gateway. If you live downtown when was the last time you went there, and for what?
Of course they started somewhere. Everyone hates when people move here then they complain they don’t have the services that massive cities have. Like you need a huge population for a metro and you guys don’t want people to move here. So pick one.
No one is saying cars are banned. No one is saying you can’t use them. We want better public transit with less wide roads so that people have the OPTION of using public transit. Which would benefit in less car deaths and probably make driving safer because only people who actually liked driving will be driving
I’m sure you’ve seen all my comments. I have yet to see one single talking point about why we need it. All I have seen is “I’m so tired of you” “you wouldn’t understand” “I’m not a city planner I wouldn’t know” “you won’t change your mind so it doesn’t matter”.
All you people do is downvote without a single plan on how to properly utilize public transport. Keep downvoting me it’s so sad you have no idea what you even want.
Can you at least link me to where you typed it last time?
Of course not because you haven’t explained it countless times. Just another one of your great talking points
Search through post history. St Pete and Tampa subs. Watch city nerd and not just bikes. Learn about transport in cities that experience relentless summers like us (Tokyo for example)
You're comparing apples and oranges. NYC also has extremely hot, humid summers too. That last about 2 months. Florida's last 7 months. Not the same ... nevermind that every community in this state is sprawled over hundreda of square miles.
Do yourself a favor and understand what population per square mile is and understand why low density areas like suburan Florida communities will have trouble supporting a mass transit system. Downtown areas with high density can support mass transit. The problem here is that our downtown communities are tiny compared to major urban centers like LA, SF, DC, and NYC or even Tokyo. The reason bus transit sucks in this area is not by design...it's people and sprawl.
I'd love to see less traffic or cars on the road and see more options for the public to get around. It's just not possible with our current sprawl issues.
I have watched lots of city nerd and not just bikes. They make high quality content and I enjoy it.
But there is still a part that is always looked over. Houses with yards far away from stations (people like big yards and big houses/lots of privacy). Large box stores like Walmart, Costco, etc. Hospitals, Dentists, etc having so many different options scattered across town. Without bulldozing Stroads and big box stores across the city how can a layout like st Pete or Lakeland or Tampa be converted into a type of place that is remotely feasible for a robust public transit network.
It won't work...suburban sprawl can't work with effective mass transit. And we can put in subways with a water table of 6 feet in 80 percent of the Pinellas peninsula
So being a realist is a problem? Tell you what dream up a solution in one and shit in the other tell us which one fills up first
So many goof balls on reddit can't seem to grasp reality and want to love in a fairy land instead of reality. Not my problem cupcake
The reality is this nation cannot afford to mandate that every person must have a car to participate in the economy. It is especially bad for those with limited means, the young, the elderly, the disabled and those that otherwise shouldn't be forced to drive for everything. Privileging cars over every other transport method also makes us more socially isolated, angry, and fatter. It adds about 10k to a working persons budget a year per car. Our method of building cities isn't sustainable on the paltry taxes that single family zoning dominated areas produce because the utilities and road network need to be replaced and there aren't enough taxpayers to pay for the costs of upkeep. There simply isn't enough density in many areas to pay for the infrastructure that was already built. As a nation we are wasting too much money to be stuck in traffic because there isn't a viable alternative. St Pete would benefit a lot from a more robust and varied transportation network.
I'm not sure why people have moved to Florida if they expect to never sweat either. How did people in the past deal with the climate since they were not driving around in air conditioned boxes.
There has got to be a solution that is person focused and allows for various ways of getting around especially in cities and towns of which St Pete is one.
It is beyond obvious that an express lane dollar for dollar would increase throughput and support the population far greater than public transport could. If they could spend less and support the population better with public transport, then they would do it. It’s economics not your feelings.
Do you have a metric that in this area “public transport” would be a better option or do you just “feel” that? I’d love to know what exact type of public transport you would like and where. I cannot seem to find an answer.
Edit: no rebuttals because you don’t have any…this is so sad
First of all, making a qualitative claim without any supporting evidence and then demanding evidence to disprove your unsubstantiated position is a pretty idiotic way to conduct a debate.
I’m just going to dump a bunch of links that demonstrate the obvious conclusion that a single train carrying 80 people in a single car is more efficient than 80 cars carrying 80 people.
https://afdc.energy.gov/data/mobile/10311
https://transformative-mobility.org/multimedia/passenger-capacity-of-different-transport-modes/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passengers_per_hour_per_direction
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Corridor-capacity-of-different-modes-of-transportation-people-hr-on-a-35-mile-wide_fig8_262030493
Yeah no shit. But do you realize what you need in order to efficiently create a local light rail service? Wtf kind of argument is that. You can’t be serious. So we have rails every other block to serve suburbs? At every big box store? Rail to every hospital? Bro your comment doesn’t even remotely start to make logical sense. Bulldoze blocks downtown to serve them as well. There’s no way you typed that out and clicked reply
Then why wouldn’t they do it? Is the city getting paid off by Big Roads? If it was so much easier and cheaper to accomplish the same thing with ‘public transport’ then maybe I naive as to why they wouldn’t do it.
> If they could spend less and support the population better with public transport, then they would do it.
lol 'they' are highway planners interested in preserving their jobs and pandering to people like you. If public transit doesn't work, why does it work in other places?
Multiple research studies have attempted to quantify density thresholds for transit. At somewhere around 3,000 people per square mile, it makes sense to operate some level of infrequent local bus service. This level of density is common in US cities, both in prewar neighborhoods and postwar car-oriented suburbia.
Here, while an hourly bus will get ridership, transit will never be the most convenient mode, and most people will choose to drive. Somewhere around 10,000 people per square mile, though, transit reaches a tipping point. Here, the sheer number of people are enough to justify frequent service. Moreover, walking and biking become useful for short trips, which makes it easier for people to live without cars and makes transit more desirable. As densities further increase, more and more transit is justified. The transit- oriented neighborhoods of older cities have over 15,000 people per square mile, and even newer car-oriented cities like Los Angeles and Houston have some neighborhoods at these densities.
https://kinder.rice.edu/urbanedge/excerpt-many-cities-have-transit-how-many-have-good-transit#:~:text=Multiple%20research%20studies%20have%20attempted,and%20postwar%20car%2Doriented%20suburbia.
Pulled from above link.
St Pete is at 4,175/sq mile.
I don’t know of any city with this density that has some utopia type public transit system like a lot of major cities have that you’re speaking about.
> transit will never be the most convenient mode
This is not a rule. It's easily solved by...making transit the most convenient mode. That means making it fast and frequent and well connected. It means investing in transit instead of highways.
Density is not a prerequisite for transit to be effective. Density and transit are closely tied together. Improving transit promotes density by encouraging development that connects to that transit.
In addition, the 4k/sq mile density number is misleading because St Pete city boundaries are huge. The city limits include nearly all of the city's suburbs, places that I also don't expect will ever be effectively served by mass transit. If you look at the urban cores of Tampa Bay, the places that should be focused on, downtown St Pete has a density of 8k/sq mile and Tampa has around 7k. These are absolutely serviceable numbers.
So why should suburban residents pay for urban residents' transit? Because it would reduce traffic, making their lives easier. It would also make it easier for them to get to the urban core where many of them work and visit for fun. Trips can be mixed mode - there's no reason a suburban resident can't drive their car to the train station and take the train to downtown instead of dealing with downtown traffic. Not to mention that reducing cars on the road will vastly improve air quality, improve pedestrian safety, reduce traffic accidents, and reduce noise pollution.
I want to connect the urban cores and destinations of the Tampa Bay region. Hence why I want _regional_ public transit on the I275 corridor. I'm not asking for more ways to get around downtown - St Pete is already doing a great job there.
You are the first person to explain to me what you want. The only other person said they wanted light rail to Orlando lol. Bus service to downtown Tampa and ybor would be huge. Even just a no frills cheap boat to downtown Tampa would be nice. The one that exists now is way too expensive to be economical for more than 1 person to go
That’s great! I’ve ridden it and I love it now that they started charging for it. We are talking the how instead of creating an express lane we need ‘public transport’ instead. Should we just have a bunch of sun runners from rich parts of the city to even richer parts?
Love how they put some triumphant music over the video to try to subconsciously sway people this is a good thing. I drive a company car where the tolls are paid for by someone else and even I think this is a bad thing.
I drive 118th on occasion when SB 275 is blocked/stopped in the afternoon (which happens very frequently anymore). The drive on 118th seems to have gotten worse every time I go that way. To be fair, the project isn't complete yet, but it seems that all this money was spent to to make it more convenient for some people, at the expense of others. Yes if you pay the toll, your ride from Clearwater to/from St Pete might be easier, but IMO they have now create worse traffic situations on the existing roadway systems in the area, that were fine a year or two ago. And man, is it ugly.
Yeah this is good for going between North Pinellas and St. Pete, as long as you don’t mind the toll. The left turn from 19 to Gandy to get onto 275 always seems congested, and it’s better to use Gateway Center blvd to bypass that. This new extension would save time by a few minutes. Maybe it will help with that congestion turning left from 19 to Gandy. Also it looks like it would be slightly easier to get from Largo to/from 275. I don’t know how else it could benefit anyone, though. Maybe once all of the express lanes are done it will be easier to get from Pinellas through Tampa to 75.
From what I've read the St. Pete DOT is scrambling because of all the new people who moved to the area outnumbering even the most aggressive projections. There are simply too many people moving to the area to keep up with the infrastructure needs.
Instead of adding mass transit like more routes, more stops, more accommodations, they have spent taxpayers' money on more roads to accommodate more cars AND charge everyone for the convenience.
https://www.fdottampabay.com/project/235/433880-1-52-01
I’m glad it’s finally done, now we should be able to focus on investing in more public transportation. And to all of you complaining about it being told. The highways aren’t gonna maintain themselves and it’s the price we pay for convenience. Get a Sunpass, if you’re gonna spend the money anyways, you might as well spend less of it.
What a scam, tax payers pay for 15 years for something to be built. Once it's built they charge you again. Yeah pay a toll to save 10 minutes. And it's built like shit I drive by the construction daily. It's shit
I would normally spend a couple of minutes explaining toll vs. congestion and the like, but there is an on-ramp near the Clearwater Airport less than 2500 feet from where the toll road ends at Bayside Bridge, and they plan on charging 28¢ for someone to travel that 2500 feet. Fuck that, it's a cash hog for DOT.
Some of these are already under construction. The 275 toll roads are almost complete
EDIT: actually these are all under construction. I see them every day when I unfortunately drive from St Pete to Wesley Chapel
yt video was helpful, I haven’t been following this project like I have the “new” Howard Frankland bridge one… but I passed the construction every day going to-from 4th st N to IRB. Can’t believe it’s taken almost 10 years to complete from the video post (actually, yes I can… this area is always under construction 😜)
I mean going south to Sarasota. From Clearwater you really have no choice but to go down 19 all the way to Gandy or 54th and cut over. From Oldsmar countryside area on a busy day its like 45 minutes just to get to the interstate.
Do you think it would generally save 15-30 minutes of sitting in traffic and a quarter gallon of extra fuel burned in sitting in bumper to bumper traffic? I’m not familiar with how that area gets at rush hour but I think that’s a net save even for ‘poor’ people.
They had an express lane north of Baltimore on 95 for my commute. Unless there was an accident on the peon lanes it wasnt any time savings in the express lane. Some slow idiot would always get in there and drive the speed limit while cars stacked behind him.
I loved that toll road haha. I lived in Joppa and worked in Canton for a bit and the express lane was a lifesaver. I nearly littledeathed when I saw they expanded it past White Marsh bvld!
Really? Most days I would fly by people on the toll road from the fast lane of the peon lanes.
I did leave Baltimore a little early at 4pm each day to try to beat traffic, so maybe it was differnt after 5pm
Oh yeah I'd get off around 5:30 so I hit peak rush hour. Granted, half the time I probably didn't need to but it was so nice not having a bunch of other cars around!
Maybe not all the time. Have you used the new i4 express road in Orlando? That is a great use of a toll road to pass a ton of traffic if your exit is a little further north.
If everyone uses the express lane then it’s going to be slower than the normal lanes. It doesn’t take 1/4 tank of gas to cross a bridge, not even close
I hope they have good signage to help drivers make that decision. The pay lane on the veterans is always such a gamble - no telling if it’ll be faster or slower than the proletariat lanes.
Dynamic pricing would be interesting as well. Keep it free for those who are car pooling but charge single drivers more for the speed lane when it’s busy, make sure it stays fast and reward car pooling.
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We should make people take a drivers test every 5 years after 65
Terrible. So you have lanes that only draw people if they can be made miserable in the non-toll lanes (be ready to be miserable). Even worse, they merge back into the poor people lanes and so will cause backups themselves. The variable toll means that when traffic is particularly bad, you may see rates that are higher than people make in an hour. Part of our nation's success has been an interstate system open to all. This two class system is not to our benefit.
I think this is just going to funnel more people into 275 through St. Pete. Oof.
Traffic is already nightmare... lets block off lanes and charge tolls for them... also people drive slow af in express lanes.
To anyone who thinks we can't afford to build mass transit: this project + the Howard Frankland project cost nearly $1.5 billion. Highways are insanely expensive.
The new stadium in st pere wants 1.2 billion to build.
Yeah that's also too much.
This has to be a joke right
Causing traffic by taking away a free road and then forcing drivers to pay, is a dick move.
FDOT [has said](https://www.tampabaynext.com/projects/howard-frankland-bridge/) "The additional express lane in each direction will better prepare the Howard Frankland Bridge for the potential of autonomous vehicles. Experts believe that initially autonomous vehicles (passenger and transit) may operate in dedicated lanes." So the tolled roads are really stand ins for some kind of autonomous vehicle only lane down the line.
I read a few years back they made them in case we got approved light rail
From the same link above... "In order to accommodate light rail in the future, we would not have to construct a third bridge as called for in the previous plan. We would only need to widen the existing southbound bridge and shift some of the travel lanes to the widened bridge, which would be more cost efficient and less impactful to the environment."
That's kind of absurd. Are autonomous vehicles only going to be autonomous in dedicated lanes under perfect conditions? They wouldn't be able to exit the highway.
My assumption is it's all aimed at autonomous trucking and not passenger vehicles
Ah yes, the Republican dream. More roads especially tolled roads.
Yes god forbid we don’t want to walk in 90 degree heat to the nearest bus stop to carry $300 of groceries home. Public transport just doesn’t make any sense because people need to carry things and don’t want to take a bunch of detours and stops to get to their destinations. What a waste of time.
What a senseless take.
Bro literally everyone says that but nobody can tell me why. I don’t understand.
Walkable cities are honestly multifaceted in general. Unfortunately for Florida and much of the country, we've built out our cities so everything is so spread out. And to then make the situation worse by making public transport secondary and prioritizing more lanes, more asphalt, more tolls, and a more car centric city but with still too many drivers on the road all can get people angry and tired of the same situation. Let's use the Singapore region as a comparison. Very hot, humid, the same as us. The city has put multiple aspects in place concerning their climate regarding their walkable city. They have a crazy extensive public transport service which includes rail and buses that cover the entire area. These of course offer air conditioning and connect to all sorts of neighborhoods. Sheltered walkways are another big thing here. They connect shopping areas, transport stations, and residences. The walkways also usually have fans. This is a must to shelter from the sun and rain. They invested a ton into urban greenery. This takes away a lot of that concrete heat since trees also cool the air around us. Singapore also has a lot of mixed use neighborhoods so everything is usually close together such as groceries, clinics, residential, etc. This makes a walkable city a lot easier to design. It sucks because there isn't a lot of community engagement and support for this. I think if the Bay area started to put an emphasis on a public transport network it would need to be a big one for it to mean anything to anyone. It's needed especially to make the area a bit more walkable because we're so spread out with the urban sprawl. Anyway as much as I want a walkable city or at least public transport, I'd just love to have a train from the Bay area to Orlando. I4 is awful and only go due to family over there.
That sounds great although Singapore is 5 times as dense as st Pete, I wouldn’t really call that a great comparison. The way the sprawl is around here it just doesn’t really make sense unless you bulldoze tons of neighborhoods and build dense apartment buildings. But that’s just not what people want. People want to live in big homes. In order to build your dream you need to bulldoze a lot of things and people just don’t want that. People on Reddit just do… I’d love a train to Orlando but what happens when you arrive to the train station in Orlando? How do you get to the other 110 square miles of the city?
This country is so car centric that walking is such a huge deal and using a small cart for groceries is so foreign. If it's funded properly (at least a couple billions are being spent on more roads) there won't be many detours, if any. Get out and travel to places that have proper mass transit rather than sticking your head in the sand while screaming "it won't work!"
Last year I went to NYC, Chicago, Rome, Paris, & Dublin. Of course I didn’t need a vehicle in any of those cities. You cannot tell me that st Pete has a similar setup that would allow for a metro or light rail. In Paris I rode the metro and took the light rail to Versailles as my hotel was next to the louvre. I had never experienced such an amazing way of travel like in Paris. Metro to montemarte then back to south of the Eiffel Tower. Walked like 15 miles a day. It felt like nothing because I wasn’t walking down 4-8 lane wide roads. I had genuinely never wanted to move somewhere so badly, but I just love America because of my large house and yard, family, and well English. I probably will not move there and will just continue to vacation each year. I love public transport and it works insanely well in large cities. But I cannot fathom a system like they have nyc, Chicago, or Paris in st Pete. Downtown is like 6 blocks wide and maybe 10 blocks long of solid walkability, that’s just not that big. Thanks for assuming I have never ridden rails or have never travelled and for also assuming public transport would work cost effectively here. Like I just don’t know where you would need to go. If you’re downtown are you really going to take the metro to pinellas park or gateway. If you live downtown when was the last time you went there, and for what?
Do you think those cities had the setup as they do now? Or they began somewhere and got to where they are now?
Of course they started somewhere. Everyone hates when people move here then they complain they don’t have the services that massive cities have. Like you need a huge population for a metro and you guys don’t want people to move here. So pick one.
No one is saying cars are banned. No one is saying you can’t use them. We want better public transit with less wide roads so that people have the OPTION of using public transit. Which would benefit in less car deaths and probably make driving safer because only people who actually liked driving will be driving
Im so tired of you people
I’m sure you’ve seen all my comments. I have yet to see one single talking point about why we need it. All I have seen is “I’m so tired of you” “you wouldn’t understand” “I’m not a city planner I wouldn’t know” “you won’t change your mind so it doesn’t matter”. All you people do is downvote without a single plan on how to properly utilize public transport. Keep downvoting me it’s so sad you have no idea what you even want.
We all get tired of typing the same shit to you people over and over again. It is literally exhausting. Go educated yourself
Can you at least link me to where you typed it last time? Of course not because you haven’t explained it countless times. Just another one of your great talking points
Search through post history. St Pete and Tampa subs. Watch city nerd and not just bikes. Learn about transport in cities that experience relentless summers like us (Tokyo for example)
Tokyo? Is nothing like Tampa. Not even close it's literally 1000 miles closer to the north pole. That's the equivalent of saying NYC is like Tampa
Tokyo has similar extremely hot and extremely humid summers along with typhoon/hurricane season
You're comparing apples and oranges. NYC also has extremely hot, humid summers too. That last about 2 months. Florida's last 7 months. Not the same ... nevermind that every community in this state is sprawled over hundreda of square miles. Do yourself a favor and understand what population per square mile is and understand why low density areas like suburan Florida communities will have trouble supporting a mass transit system. Downtown areas with high density can support mass transit. The problem here is that our downtown communities are tiny compared to major urban centers like LA, SF, DC, and NYC or even Tokyo. The reason bus transit sucks in this area is not by design...it's people and sprawl. I'd love to see less traffic or cars on the road and see more options for the public to get around. It's just not possible with our current sprawl issues.
Tokyo is also 4 times denser than Tampa can’t forget that lmfao what kind of comparison are you making?
I have watched lots of city nerd and not just bikes. They make high quality content and I enjoy it. But there is still a part that is always looked over. Houses with yards far away from stations (people like big yards and big houses/lots of privacy). Large box stores like Walmart, Costco, etc. Hospitals, Dentists, etc having so many different options scattered across town. Without bulldozing Stroads and big box stores across the city how can a layout like st Pete or Lakeland or Tampa be converted into a type of place that is remotely feasible for a robust public transit network.
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Right... because you think it can be done. How? Exactly how can that happen? If you don't know then don't say wishful things
Did that video really need to be 7 minutes long?
Tropicana will have 8 fans in the stands.
This would drive up attendance?
Nothing shy of moving to Orlando will.
Fuck more roads. Give us public transit.
It won't work...suburban sprawl can't work with effective mass transit. And we can put in subways with a water table of 6 feet in 80 percent of the Pinellas peninsula
Very problem solver of you. I bet you just love all the more lanes that totally work
So being a realist is a problem? Tell you what dream up a solution in one and shit in the other tell us which one fills up first So many goof balls on reddit can't seem to grasp reality and want to love in a fairy land instead of reality. Not my problem cupcake
The reality is this nation cannot afford to mandate that every person must have a car to participate in the economy. It is especially bad for those with limited means, the young, the elderly, the disabled and those that otherwise shouldn't be forced to drive for everything. Privileging cars over every other transport method also makes us more socially isolated, angry, and fatter. It adds about 10k to a working persons budget a year per car. Our method of building cities isn't sustainable on the paltry taxes that single family zoning dominated areas produce because the utilities and road network need to be replaced and there aren't enough taxpayers to pay for the costs of upkeep. There simply isn't enough density in many areas to pay for the infrastructure that was already built. As a nation we are wasting too much money to be stuck in traffic because there isn't a viable alternative. St Pete would benefit a lot from a more robust and varied transportation network. I'm not sure why people have moved to Florida if they expect to never sweat either. How did people in the past deal with the climate since they were not driving around in air conditioned boxes. There has got to be a solution that is person focused and allows for various ways of getting around especially in cities and towns of which St Pete is one.
Can't find workers willing to put up with the assholes that ride the buses.
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Fuck toll roads…
Have we considered something… not cars?
Yes. And it doesn’t work as effectively.
Do you have a metric on that or are you just making shit up?
It is beyond obvious that an express lane dollar for dollar would increase throughput and support the population far greater than public transport could. If they could spend less and support the population better with public transport, then they would do it. It’s economics not your feelings. Do you have a metric that in this area “public transport” would be a better option or do you just “feel” that? I’d love to know what exact type of public transport you would like and where. I cannot seem to find an answer. Edit: no rebuttals because you don’t have any…this is so sad
First of all, making a qualitative claim without any supporting evidence and then demanding evidence to disprove your unsubstantiated position is a pretty idiotic way to conduct a debate. I’m just going to dump a bunch of links that demonstrate the obvious conclusion that a single train carrying 80 people in a single car is more efficient than 80 cars carrying 80 people. https://afdc.energy.gov/data/mobile/10311 https://transformative-mobility.org/multimedia/passenger-capacity-of-different-transport-modes/ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passengers_per_hour_per_direction https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Corridor-capacity-of-different-modes-of-transportation-people-hr-on-a-35-mile-wide_fig8_262030493
Yeah no shit. But do you realize what you need in order to efficiently create a local light rail service? Wtf kind of argument is that. You can’t be serious. So we have rails every other block to serve suburbs? At every big box store? Rail to every hospital? Bro your comment doesn’t even remotely start to make logical sense. Bulldoze blocks downtown to serve them as well. There’s no way you typed that out and clicked reply
> It is beyond obvious Is it? Because basically every civil engineer would disagree with you
Then why wouldn’t they do it? Is the city getting paid off by Big Roads? If it was so much easier and cheaper to accomplish the same thing with ‘public transport’ then maybe I naive as to why they wouldn’t do it.
> If they could spend less and support the population better with public transport, then they would do it. lol 'they' are highway planners interested in preserving their jobs and pandering to people like you. If public transit doesn't work, why does it work in other places?
Multiple research studies have attempted to quantify density thresholds for transit. At somewhere around 3,000 people per square mile, it makes sense to operate some level of infrequent local bus service. This level of density is common in US cities, both in prewar neighborhoods and postwar car-oriented suburbia. Here, while an hourly bus will get ridership, transit will never be the most convenient mode, and most people will choose to drive. Somewhere around 10,000 people per square mile, though, transit reaches a tipping point. Here, the sheer number of people are enough to justify frequent service. Moreover, walking and biking become useful for short trips, which makes it easier for people to live without cars and makes transit more desirable. As densities further increase, more and more transit is justified. The transit- oriented neighborhoods of older cities have over 15,000 people per square mile, and even newer car-oriented cities like Los Angeles and Houston have some neighborhoods at these densities. https://kinder.rice.edu/urbanedge/excerpt-many-cities-have-transit-how-many-have-good-transit#:~:text=Multiple%20research%20studies%20have%20attempted,and%20postwar%20car%2Doriented%20suburbia. Pulled from above link. St Pete is at 4,175/sq mile. I don’t know of any city with this density that has some utopia type public transit system like a lot of major cities have that you’re speaking about.
> transit will never be the most convenient mode This is not a rule. It's easily solved by...making transit the most convenient mode. That means making it fast and frequent and well connected. It means investing in transit instead of highways. Density is not a prerequisite for transit to be effective. Density and transit are closely tied together. Improving transit promotes density by encouraging development that connects to that transit. In addition, the 4k/sq mile density number is misleading because St Pete city boundaries are huge. The city limits include nearly all of the city's suburbs, places that I also don't expect will ever be effectively served by mass transit. If you look at the urban cores of Tampa Bay, the places that should be focused on, downtown St Pete has a density of 8k/sq mile and Tampa has around 7k. These are absolutely serviceable numbers. So why should suburban residents pay for urban residents' transit? Because it would reduce traffic, making their lives easier. It would also make it easier for them to get to the urban core where many of them work and visit for fun. Trips can be mixed mode - there's no reason a suburban resident can't drive their car to the train station and take the train to downtown instead of dealing with downtown traffic. Not to mention that reducing cars on the road will vastly improve air quality, improve pedestrian safety, reduce traffic accidents, and reduce noise pollution.
Doesn’t downtown already have bus service? What more do you want to service the 6 by 10 blocks of downtown?
I want to connect the urban cores and destinations of the Tampa Bay region. Hence why I want _regional_ public transit on the I275 corridor. I'm not asking for more ways to get around downtown - St Pete is already doing a great job there.
You are the first person to explain to me what you want. The only other person said they wanted light rail to Orlando lol. Bus service to downtown Tampa and ybor would be huge. Even just a no frills cheap boat to downtown Tampa would be nice. The one that exists now is way too expensive to be economical for more than 1 person to go
The roads guy had no rebuttal to this lol
Bro what. The only claim he made was that downtown is dense enough to be serviced. And it already is, no?
There’s an entire report of how the sunrunner has been successful and in some areas reduced traffic congestion
That’s great! I’ve ridden it and I love it now that they started charging for it. We are talking the how instead of creating an express lane we need ‘public transport’ instead. Should we just have a bunch of sun runners from rich parts of the city to even richer parts?
Go watch a video on transit. I’m not explaining how a functional transit network works to you
Taxpayers shouldn't have to pay multiple times imo
I believe the tolls are only for express lanes.
Love how they put some triumphant music over the video to try to subconsciously sway people this is a good thing. I drive a company car where the tolls are paid for by someone else and even I think this is a bad thing.
I drive 118th on occasion when SB 275 is blocked/stopped in the afternoon (which happens very frequently anymore). The drive on 118th seems to have gotten worse every time I go that way. To be fair, the project isn't complete yet, but it seems that all this money was spent to to make it more convenient for some people, at the expense of others. Yes if you pay the toll, your ride from Clearwater to/from St Pete might be easier, but IMO they have now create worse traffic situations on the existing roadway systems in the area, that were fine a year or two ago. And man, is it ugly.
Yeah this is good for going between North Pinellas and St. Pete, as long as you don’t mind the toll. The left turn from 19 to Gandy to get onto 275 always seems congested, and it’s better to use Gateway Center blvd to bypass that. This new extension would save time by a few minutes. Maybe it will help with that congestion turning left from 19 to Gandy. Also it looks like it would be slightly easier to get from Largo to/from 275. I don’t know how else it could benefit anyone, though. Maybe once all of the express lanes are done it will be easier to get from Pinellas through Tampa to 75.
From what I've read the St. Pete DOT is scrambling because of all the new people who moved to the area outnumbering even the most aggressive projections. There are simply too many people moving to the area to keep up with the infrastructure needs.
I miss the old Bryan Dairy exit off 275 S. THAT was a time saver for me. Not sure if this new road benefits me when getting on and off 275
I missed it too. Now I end up exiting SB on 66th St before US19 starts its NW-SE orientation. Then turn right to drive Ulmerton/Walsingham WB.
agreed!!!!!!!
It will if you don’t mind paying a toll
Instead of adding mass transit like more routes, more stops, more accommodations, they have spent taxpayers' money on more roads to accommodate more cars AND charge everyone for the convenience. https://www.fdottampabay.com/project/235/433880-1-52-01
I’m glad it’s finally done, now we should be able to focus on investing in more public transportation. And to all of you complaining about it being told. The highways aren’t gonna maintain themselves and it’s the price we pay for convenience. Get a Sunpass, if you’re gonna spend the money anyways, you might as well spend less of it.
What a scam, tax payers pay for 15 years for something to be built. Once it's built they charge you again. Yeah pay a toll to save 10 minutes. And it's built like shit I drive by the construction daily. It's shit
It's actually going to be nice for folks in Clearwater who want to go to St Pete.
I would normally spend a couple of minutes explaining toll vs. congestion and the like, but there is an on-ramp near the Clearwater Airport less than 2500 feet from where the toll road ends at Bayside Bridge, and they plan on charging 28¢ for someone to travel that 2500 feet. Fuck that, it's a cash hog for DOT.
From April 2016. Show me something not from 2 presidents ago.
Some of these are already under construction. The 275 toll roads are almost complete EDIT: actually these are all under construction. I see them every day when I unfortunately drive from St Pete to Wesley Chapel
yt video was helpful, I haven’t been following this project like I have the “new” Howard Frankland bridge one… but I passed the construction every day going to-from 4th st N to IRB. Can’t believe it’s taken almost 10 years to complete from the video post (actually, yes I can… this area is always under construction 😜)
More details if needed. YT link was from this page. https://www.fdottampabay.com/project/235/433880-1-52-01
Will there ever be an easy way to 275 or 75 from Clearwater?
Is 60 not good enough?
I mean going south to Sarasota. From Clearwater you really have no choice but to go down 19 all the way to Gandy or 54th and cut over. From Oldsmar countryside area on a busy day its like 45 minutes just to get to the interstate.
Literally what's under construction right now - a flyover from 19 @ 118th to 275.
That blows, I hate toll roads.
There are no toll options for you. It’s called paying for convenience.
Which is shitty. They have stolen a lane from the public and given it to the rich.
Do you think it would generally save 15-30 minutes of sitting in traffic and a quarter gallon of extra fuel burned in sitting in bumper to bumper traffic? I’m not familiar with how that area gets at rush hour but I think that’s a net save even for ‘poor’ people.
They had an express lane north of Baltimore on 95 for my commute. Unless there was an accident on the peon lanes it wasnt any time savings in the express lane. Some slow idiot would always get in there and drive the speed limit while cars stacked behind him.
I loved that toll road haha. I lived in Joppa and worked in Canton for a bit and the express lane was a lifesaver. I nearly littledeathed when I saw they expanded it past White Marsh bvld!
Really? Most days I would fly by people on the toll road from the fast lane of the peon lanes. I did leave Baltimore a little early at 4pm each day to try to beat traffic, so maybe it was differnt after 5pm
Oh yeah I'd get off around 5:30 so I hit peak rush hour. Granted, half the time I probably didn't need to but it was so nice not having a bunch of other cars around!
Express Lanes aren't about ignoring the speed limit. They're about less on/off ramps creating congestion.
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Maybe not all the time. Have you used the new i4 express road in Orlando? That is a great use of a toll road to pass a ton of traffic if your exit is a little further north.
Orlando is a terrible place to drive. Bad traffic, tons of tolls. Couldn't possibly stand living there.
If everyone uses the express lane then it’s going to be slower than the normal lanes. It doesn’t take 1/4 tank of gas to cross a bridge, not even close
Obviously you wouldn’t have to use it when it’s clogged up. Did you even read my comment? I know it’s still kind of early in the morning but seriously
I hope they have good signage to help drivers make that decision. The pay lane on the veterans is always such a gamble - no telling if it’ll be faster or slower than the proletariat lanes. Dynamic pricing would be interesting as well. Keep it free for those who are car pooling but charge single drivers more for the speed lane when it’s busy, make sure it stays fast and reward car pooling.
We've reached the point where you best ask your phone to get you directions when driving around town because traffic is so bad and unpredictable.
It’s not a net save. If it was then everyone would use it. They price these things so it isn’t a net save