New link completes long-awaited section of trail
Expanding and improving multimodal transportation has become a major focus in Florida, and the new link to the Fred. E. Marquis Pinellas Trail that was part of the Keystone Road expansion is a huge step toward that end in the western part of the state.
“ We get a huge amount of people who use the trail for multimodal transportation,” said Joseph DeMoss, engineering support services supervisor for Pinellas County.“ We’ re trying to loop the entire county with that trail.”
The more than 42 miles of the Pinellas Trail extends from St. Petersburg in the south to Tarpon Springs in the north, connecting county parks, coastal areas, and many cities.
“ The Pinellas Trail is very heavily used,” DeMoss said.“ It’ s nationally recognized. People from all over come just to ride on the trail. It’ s an economic generator, and this northern piece was a long time coming.”
The 15-foot asphalt path runs approximately 2 miles on the project’ s north side. The trail was on the County’ s to-do list for a long time, DeMoss said. The new section linked what was a 2.7-mile separation between a section of trail east of US 19 and a 4-mile segment near Keystone Road along East Lake Road to near John Chestnut Park.
The Florida Department of Transportation has long-term plans to connect the Pinellas Trail into what is being called the Coast to Coast Connector. Once it’ s completed, the project would eventually be an estimated 275 miles of continuous trails stretching from St. Petersburg on the western coast to Canaveral National Seashore near Titusville on the eastern shore.
– Eric Widholm
solved efficiently, and the overall team worked well together.
“ We were out there every day, so you don’ t realize all the improvements that were made,” he said.“ But you look back at before and after pictures and realize just how much it has changed.”
Some utilities under Keystone Road were more than 50 years old. During construction the contractor discovered that older utilities crossed or were not accurately marked in previous plans. With the mass of stormwater improvements and retaining walls required for the project, finding new routes for the utilities also was a challenge.
The project included eight stormwater retention ponds, 31 retaining walls, and more than 6 miles of drainage pipes up to 72 inches in size to control stormwater runoff, as well as sanitary sewer, overhead distribution and transmission lines, underground gas mains, and underground fiber optic cables.
“ It was just like a spaghetti of lines under this road – spaghetti lines of 30-inch and 48-inch pipes,” said Dori Sabeh, Ayres Associates’ lead designer for that portion of the project.
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