Work will start in May to add a third lane to the oldest stretch between Gandy Boulevard and Florida Avenue.
TAMPA, Fla. — Get ready for a major construction project on the Selmon Expressway that the Tampa Hillsborough Expressway Authority says will eventually clear a bottleneck that plagues the afternoon eastbound commute.
A few weeks from now, work will begin to add another lane heading east to downtown from Gandy Boulevard to the Florida Avenue exit; the area typically clogs up when workers at MacDill Air Force Base head home along with the influx of newer residents.
“Since 2015, we’ve seen an 80% increase in traffic on the Selmon,” Greg Deese, Director of Operations and Engineering for the Tampa Hillsborough Expressway Authority, said. “One of our biggest congestion points right now is eastbound in the afternoon, coming from MacDill. This project is designed to alleviate a lot of that congestion.”
If that happens, traffic should be lighter on side streets like Bayshore and Westshore Boulevards that are often suggested as an alternate route on GPS apps.
Monday night in Hyde Park, many who live next to the Selmon wanted to know about construction noise and vibrations at their homes, but the noise that bothers Vicki Key is from traffic all day long because her home is next to the expressway. New noise walls should help quiet her neighborhood.
“I’m real glad with the proposal the way it is,” she said. “It’s going to make it so wonderful because then my backyard is going to be livable.”
Construction will start at the downtown exit bottleneck and move west toward Gandy with a goal to be done by 2030, and lane closures will be limited to nighttime hours.
The first thing you’ll notice is tree clearing for where new lanes will be, then orange barricades in the coming weeks.
Tolls are not going up to pay for the project. It’s costing nearly $400 million but will be paid for with surplus toll money.