PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 It\u2019s a question that drivers have asked for years in north Pinellas County: Will East Lake Road ever be widened to accommodate the growing traffic?<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
Pinellas County is asking for money in the state budget to widen East Lake Road
\n
The county has been studying the widening since 2021
\n
Congestion is common on the four-lane road between Tampa Road and Trinity Boulevard<\/p>\n
The county is now asking the state to fund just that.<\/p>\n
State Rep. Adam Anderson (R-Palm Harbor) made an appropriations request of $15 million in the new state budget for capacity improvements to East Lake Road.<\/p>\n
Widening East Lake Road is an issue that Pinellas County has been debating for years. In fact, the county is currently doing a study on it.<\/p>\n
East Lake Community\u00a0Library Director Lois Eannel said the topic comes up often there.<\/p>\n
\u201cEast Lake has become very congested. Very heavily traveled,\u201d Eannel said.<\/p>\n
And she would know.<\/p>\n
Eannel commutes on it each day from Trinity in Pasco County.<\/p>\n
In fact, southwest Pasco County is where a lot of the traffic comes from on East Lake Road because of all the development there.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat was originally a 15-minute ride from Trinity, is at least double during certain times of the day,\u201d Eannel said.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why she\u2019s interested in a possible widening project.<\/p>\n
Pinellas County is now asking for the state funds to reduce congestion and improve safety, according to the appropriations request.<\/p>\n
East Lake Road is just a four-lane road from Tampa Road to Trinity Boulevard. That\u2019s where a lot of the delays tend to happen.<\/p>\n
Eannel said she feels adding lanes could help \u2014 though she\u2019s a bit skeptical.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know if there is a long-term solution. You have a lot of people and a lot of cars,\u201d Eannel said.<\/p>\n
The funding would go to Pinellas County if the Florida Legislature approves it in the state budget. There\u2019s currently no timeline for construction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 It\u2019s a question that drivers have asked for years in north Pinellas County: Will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":119404,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[274,7444,115,596,202,204,203,199,201,200,135,7227,278,729,835],"class_list":["post-119403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-app-top-stories","tag-getting-there","tag-news","tag-pinellas-county","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-tampa","tag-tim-wronka","tag-top-stories","tag-traffic","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}