The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT), District Seven is conducting a Safety Action Plan along the U.S. 19 frontage roads. The 11.5 mile stretch of frontage roads passes through the cities of Pinellas Park, Largo, Clearwater, and unincorporated Pinellas County. This area is characterized by commercial, industrial, and multifamily residential land uses including multiple mobile home parks. This effort builds upon recently completed and ongoing planning efforts in the area that have already established a vision for years to come.

Fabian played the role of project principal for this project while employed with Kittelson & Associates. The study team worked with stakeholders and agency partners to evaluate multimodal needs and develop potential roadway modifications to improve safety, operations, and connectivity for all users. Because the role of the frontage roads is to provide access to corridor destinations, travel needs focus on local demand, with the assumption that U.S. 19 will continue to serve regional trips. As part of this process the team provided municipalities recommendations for land use changes that may facilitate the recommended multimodal improvements.

Based upon an understanding of the corridor needs, the project team evaluated a range of possible improvement scenarios, from location-specific multimodal improvements to corridor-wide typical section changes, that serve as prototypes to showcase potential improvements along the corridor. These improvements include turn lane improvements, pedestrian and bicycle accommodations, signal retiming, transit stop amenities, etc.

Recommendations are being developed in an environment that encourages input and collaboration from stakeholders, as well as from various units within FDOT.  Outcomes of this study include an implementation plan that will outline long-term strategies that support future development within the corridor, as well as specific improvements that can potentially be advanced in the near-term through local agency participation and/or by FDOT as Resurfacing, Restoration, Rehabilitation (3R) projects, safety enhancements or push-button projects, such as traffic operations signal re-timing projects. This plan identifies the degree of impact associated with each of the proposed short- and long-term multimodal transportation improvements.

For more information on this project:

https://www.fdotd7studies.com/US19FrontageRoads/