{"id":273630,"date":"2026-05-16T18:12:49","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T18:12:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/273630\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T18:12:49","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T18:12:49","slug":"bartows-state-road-60-bridge-project-begins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/273630\/","title":{"rendered":"Bartow’s State Road 60 bridge project begins"},"content":{"rendered":"

BARTOW, Fla. \u2014 Construction is now underway on a new multi-use bridge over State Road 60 in Bartow. It\u2019s aimed at improving safety for bicyclists and pedestrians using the Fort Fraser Trail.<\/p>\n

The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) is leading the project, which has been in the works for more than a decade.<\/p>\n

Trish Pfeiffer, a Bartow city commissioner and avid cyclist, first identified the need for the bridge in 2010 after trying to cross the busy road herself.<\/p>\n

“I noticed when I was riding the trail, that when I came to State Road 60, I couldn\u2019t get over 60. So I had to go down to the light, cross nine lanes of very busy traffic. And so I said, we need a bridge,” Pfeiffer said.<\/p>\n

\"This<\/p>\n

This is a FDOT rendering of the bridge. (FDOT)<\/p>\n

The bridge will now connect two sides of the Fort Fraser Trail, which is a nearly eight-mile multi-use trail that runs parallel to US 98 in Polk County.<\/p>\n

Local business owners, like Jason Brown, owner of Road & Trail Bicycles, hope the bridge will also attract more visitors to downtown Bartow.<\/p>\n

“I think the bridge would be tremendous in opening up downtown Bartow to not just serious cyclists but casual cyclists,” Brown said.<\/p>\n

Construction officially began on Thursday. The $9.6-million FDOT project is expected to be done by the middle of the next year<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BARTOW, Fla. \u2014 Construction is now underway on a new multi-use bridge over State Road 60 in Bartow.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273631,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[274,2173,7444,115,1911,135,137,136,7227,278,729,835],"class_list":["post-273630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-app-top-stories","tag-app-traffic-transit","tag-getting-there","tag-news","tag-polk-county","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-tim-wronka","tag-top-stories","tag-traffic","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273630","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=273630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273630\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}