My co-worker Mark mentioned that in a recent Pinellas County Planning Organization meeting, the concept of upgrading the planned freeway of Bryan Dairy Road (Pinellas County 296), between Interstate 275 and U.S. 19 in St. Petersburg and Pinellas Park, Florida as Interstate 475. He says it was mentioned two or three times in the meeting. I’ve not found anything on their website to confirm this, nor can I find any planning documents yet. But here’s your heads up!
Why it would be an even-numbered Interstate is beyond me, but it would tie directly into the upgraded U.S. 19 freeway, which is presently under construction between Pinellas County 611 (49th Street North) and Ulmerton Road (Florida 688). A look at MyUS19.com http://myus19.com/html/Pinellas/segment1.htm reveals a planned SPUI for the intersection of U.S. 19 and Pinellas County 296, so that would not provide a seamless freeway to freeway connection between the two freeways.
I’ll post more if/when I find out more.
A bit intriguing to chose I-475 since it will be more of a spur (since I-375 and I-175 are already taked for the short spurs in downtown St-Petersburg, it left I-575, I-775 and I-975 for Florida) unless they could upgrade FL-60 between I-275 and US-19 later as a full freeway so it can became a loop?
It would, in fact, have been I-575 by the time it got planned, though this seems to be the only reference *anywhere* on the web to the idea; the 118th Ave interchange westbound off 275 has an open spur connection for what might have been this, or might have been the Bayside Bridge connector — I don’t know what was in work when that was built.
Did anyone ever find out anything about this? Wikipedia is crickets on it.
(On a related story, shortly after that, one of the planning boards officially renamed the entirety of CR 296 as Bryan Dairy Rd, all the way from past 28th St to Oakhurst Rd, though that’s damned hard to learn as well…
Subsequent searches and research on this revealed nothing. The biggest change coming to this area is the Gateway Express (SR 690) toll road project. Money was pumped into this by the Governor last year, and work is expected to go out to bid this fall with work breaking ground in Summer 2017 and lasting five years.