'43 Bridge proposal between Tampa and St. Petersburg, Florida (Lakeland, Brandon: college, to live)

[Mike1306]

Where did you come up with the 50,000 lives?

Is there reason to believe that Tampa/St.Pete is going to get hit with the deadliest Hurricane ever?

Is the death toll going to be 5 times more than the largest in US history for a natural disaster?

It is going to be 25 times worse than Katrina?

With hurricanes we get warning many days before hand. Plenty of time to evacuate.

[rtjr]

Originally Posted by Ross Nicholson

Will you be so concerned about the aesthetics of the bay when there are bodies of human children dangling from mangrove branches after the next big hurricane? .

That statement alone confirms that you are obviously a nutjob.

Take it from someone who is in the business. This bridge concept is not needed and can not/will not ever be built

[Angler]

Hillsborough Bay most certainly has a bridge- the 22nd Street causeway.

[ferret111]

Originally Posted by Angler

Hillsborough Bay most certainly has a bridge- the 22nd Street causeway.

That's McKay Bay.

[Ross Nicholson]

Gandy Boulevard and most of the interbay peninsula will one day be under up to twenty feet of water. Fifty thousand lives saved is the carry capacity of the bridge and highway out of St. Pete for two hours.
Large roadless areas in a cityscape obviously do increase travel times. That is the effect of large bodies of water. Not everybody can see how this is. Children have especial difficulty, but many adults do too.
A roadway that transects an arc would diminish pollution by being shorter than the long way 'round. Not everybody can see how this is. Children have especial difficulty, but many adults, do too. A covered roadway/bridge would enable capture and treatment of automotive exhaust by active (solar) and passive circulation to a second catalytic converter.

There is a bigger point here. It is in the city's self-interest to enhance property values rather than destroying them. A bridge between St. Pete and the interbay peninsula would greatly increase property values in St. Petersburg and in poor depressed, expresswayless sub-Gandy. Easy access to two downtown areas would dramatically increase Mac Dill area real estate, probably by at least five times, PROVIDED that the new highway/bridge are good neighbors. Being a good neighbor means not being noisy, not stinking, not disturbing people, looking good and being pleasant. The soundproof and vibration proof design is proven, simple and inexpensive. Recently the technology has been demonstrated for the laying of grass over the roof of the shed (making it a lush green hill) and putting a bikeway on top, too. The city is encouraging us to be green, to make the city livable. What could be greener than to cover a busy roadway with a silent green park?
Not everyone can appreciate the benefits of garden-top roofs, but enough of you should.

If you do not believe me that I proposed the Water Taxi, the Floating River Walk, and Lights on Tampa, why don't you examine the email log at City Hall?

B. Nicholson

[Ross Nicholson]

The property owners south of Gandy Boulevard in Tampa are almost surrounded by impassable water and they are all too far from I-275. They need to be closer to such a road. Extending the Cross Town Expressway down past Mac Dill Field and over to St. Petersburg would make living there so much easier, provided the new route is clean, quiet, and people-friendly. Trucks rumble 24 hours a day out of the petroleum tank farm on surface roads past schools. Don't you want to put a stop to all that traffic noise while making those truckers happy to be able to get in and out faster?

Why would anybody want to be in the business of paving over people? Our expressway authority here in Tampa has some good engineers and they need to keep working. Let them work on my concept, building a covered roadway/bridge continuing down the open CSX right of way and over to St. Pete across shallow Old Tampa Bay? Don't be afraid. Your city needs you.

I am the only person in this town with a brain. It is sad, but it is obviously true. You people of Tampa have followed me before (Water Taxi, Floating Riverwalk, Lights on Tampa, etc.) and the town has benefitted greatly. Follow me again.

[Dee74]

There is a bigger point here. It is in the city's self-interest to enhance property values rather than destroying them. A bridge between St. Pete and the interbay peninsula would greatly increase property values in St. Petersburg and in poor depressed, expresswayless sub-Gandy. Easy access to two downtown areas would dramatically increase Mac Dill area real estate, probably by at least five times, PROVIDED that the new highway/bridge are good neighbors.

As someone who lives in poor depressed, expresswayless sub-Gandy and have for 30 years, you well know we have fought every bridge proposal that DOT keeps bringing us. Most of us love our neighborhood and being at the far end of Westshore and Interbay Blvd I can tell you I can get anywhere in St.Pete or most of Tampa in 20 min. The last damn thing we need is a through expressway in our neighborhood. Gandy Blvd is our downtown and they keep trying to put a damn bridge through it. Now that they have "improved" Gandy by building road islands so no turns can be made other than at lights I guess this will be the new base for an elevated bridge they have wanted to build for awhile now. I can only hope it is not in my lifetime.
As far as property values they are high enough thank you. Anymore tax increases and insurance increases and most of us down here will be pushed out and many nearly are now. Thank god for the recession, that put several big building projects on their deathbed, otherwise there would be so many people down here you could never get out. The builders almost killed this area trying to make us Hyde Park South and have impacted our area not for the better. Now what we have is the folks who bought all these nice new expensive homes are bitching that the area should be nicer for the money they paid, and they don't like looking at some of the older homes with boats in the driveway etc. Too damn bad there are plenty of gated communities for these folks with HOA's that will run their life, I always remind them that no one forced them to move here and while we are still a free country they are free to move away.
Your grand delusions for this area are just that.

[Ross Nicholson]

This is what we get when we elect cretans to public office to hire their kinfolk:

Originally Posted by Aconite

No.
Traffic and drive times are insane (though it's no moreso than in DC or Boston) because of a number of things: urban sprawl, badly planned roads, and lack of viable public transportation being a few of them.

A bridge between the Crosstown and downtown St. Pete is of little help getting from, say, Ozona to Carrollwood, Clearwater Beach to Safety Harbor, Brandon to New Port Richey, or New Tampa to...well, pretty much anywhere.

MUST I explain even this? Imagine a square area. Now draw a large circle within the square, not so large as to touch the segments of square, but large enough to cover, say 40% of the square's area. Now, pick any two points in the square but not in the circle. Measure the distance between the two points inside the square but not in the circle. For all the differences, their sum will be much longer than for a smaller same-sided rectangle of the same area as square - circle.
Now, cross the circle with a 'bridge' (at any place at any orientation, down to tangent). The summation of distances is now smaller. You can make the circle any shape up almost to the same area as the square, and a single bridge across any of it will result in smaller 'drive times'. If air pollution is a function of the summation of distances (which it obviously is, the longer you drive the more you pollute), then yes, ANY bridge will reduce air pollution because it reduces distances people travel.
Now where is the best place for a bridge? Again, with a mathematical model, I can prove that the best place is immediately between the two biggest destinations. Of course, by increasing the difficulty in travel you can eliminate pollution altogether. Flood the whole county and plant an impassable jungle swamp. People won't be able to travel and everyone would starve. (Yes, living is, to a certain extent, a function of travel.)

I feel as though I'm talking to ornithologists. 14 minutes X 75,000 people is about 3 lifetimes a aday, isn't it? When you stop all traffic from moving across the bays, you basically condemn humanity (your own children) to death in automobile coffins (increased traffic accident deaths), are you following this?

Building this artery is vitally important to the future of this region. Without it, tens of thousands of people are going to perish in Pinellas. The best place to put a public transportation system is between the top two destinations in the straightest possible line.

Originally Posted by Aconite

And honestly, in this time of national financial stress, I don't really see shaving 14 minutes of a small number of folks' drive as a huge priority. Somehow, CW "Bill the Pork Barrel King" Young's name has to've be involved.

Infrastructure of the best possible design (like bridges on the straightest lines between top two destinations, duh) is a national priority because we have made it so. A train running from downtown Tampa to downtown St. Pete would be a very useful, profitable, and beautiful project, one that would freshen the air and brighten the prospects of us all. This is not a republican idea. I'm a Democrat, FOB, FOH.

[bentlebee]

Is this a pork/ waste spending...I never heard that this was so needed...
In todays economy do we need this?

[LianeJamason]

Wow interesting. What we need is a bridge from the Riverview/Brandon area straight across the bay to St. Pete. I wish.