Expressway authority officials admit, however, that it may not pay for itself until long after the toll road is completed.
By RODNEY THRASH
Published April 25, 2004
NEW TAMPA - It's official.
Tolls could cover the cost of a proposed $100-million roadway that would connect New Tampa to Interstate 275.
"This project definitely meets the criteria . . . for a toll road," Tampa-Hillsborough Expressway Authority chief financial officer Brady Sneath said Friday, the same day the authority released its long-awaited East-West Road toll feasibility study.
But while the authority is certain that tolls would support the road, it is just as certain that the road would not be profitable. Not initially.
"There needs to be a (financial) backer for it to work," authority spokeswoman PerryDawn Brown said. "It would eventually make a profit. However, it won't make a profit unless it has . . . something as collateral."
The city has a couple of options.
* It could agree to pledge a certain amount of city revenue to pay for bond costs as well as operations and maintenance until the road can financially support itself.
* Someone else, namely a toll agency, could build the road.
Sneath said the authority, which operates the Lee Roy Selmon Crosstown Expressway, is not in the position to provide full financial backing.
"We would be able to provide a partial backstop but not (the) full backstop it would need initially," he said.
There's no need for alarm, officials said.
"I'm not aware of any toll road in Florida that . . . from the very first day collected enough revenue to pay for itself," Sneath said.
However, he added, "over time, they not only paid for themselves but generated additional revenues that could be used for improvements."
Nonetheless, the report solidifies what a Connecticut company found earlier this year. In a February 2003 study, Wilbur Smith Associates estimated that as many as 14,600 vehicles would use the 3.1-mile East-West Road if it were to open in 2008.
At 75 cents - 50 cents for SunPass holders - that could amount to $3.3-million a year in revenue. By 2038, when an estimated 21,400 commuters would pay as much as $2 in tolls, the East-West Road could generate as much as $14.6-million.
Still, there are strong views on both sides of the fence.
Transportation experts have said that the road is necessary to take cars off Bruce B. Downs Boulevard, ranked among the most accident-prone streets in Hillsborough County last year.
In West Meadows, a deed-restricted community between Hunter's Green and Pebble Creek, some residents say the road would divide their community in half.
Marshall Adams should know. He is involved with the Citizens for West Meadows, which formed in 1998 and is opposed to the East-West Road. Adams, who had not reviewed the study Friday, said he had reservations about the latest findings.
"I'm still curious about why (in) the original toll study people were not willing to pay 50 cents a trip, but now all of sudden there is enough projected traffic to pay for the road," he said.
However, Don Nevins welcomed the news. The Pebble Creek homeowner serves on the New Tampa Transportation Working Group, an association of residents and transportation officials from Hillsborough and Pasco counties.
"It's a step forward that indicates that financially speaking it's a doable thing," he said. "The area desperately needs east-west outlets."
Tampa City Council member Shawn Harrison, an East-West Road proponent who lives next to Adams in Hunter's Green, said, "We're going to make sure we're going to protect those neighborhoods that are going to be most affected by this.
"But I think ultimately this project will prove to be something that is going to be attractive to people in those neighborhoods because they'll have direct (and the) easiest access to the interstate."
