Sunday, March 11, 2012

Interstate275Florida.com Revamped

If you were having some difficulty logging on to Interstate275Florida.com for some time Sunday evening (11 March 2012), it's because I just uploaded several revisions to the Interstate 275 Florida website for your reading pleasure! After all, with all the construction taking place at any given moment out there on Interstate 275 in the Tampa/St. Petersburg area, I try to make the changes as time permits.

Here are the highlights of the additions and changes I have made:

On the northern terminus page, I have changed out the pictures for the exit onto FL 56. Originally the Florida DOT designated this exit as Interstate 75's Exit 275 but as I reported in an earlier post the potential for motorist confusion existed. So, on go the overlays (also known as FDOT Green-Out, akin to the white-out that you use when you need to correct something on paper; white-out sure beats the old fashioned Liquid Paper these days!) and Exit 275 (FL 56) has been redesignated as Exit 59 for northbound Interstate 275.

Let's head over the Howard Frankland Bridge to St. Petersburg and I have noticed that the Exit Only panels on northbound Interstate 275 at 54 Av N (Exit 26) were getting unreadable. What does the Florida DOT do to correct this despite the tough budget times that the State of Florida is in? Place a yellow overlay with the words "Exit Only" in wider FHWA Highway Gothic font over the existing sign! The folks over at the Florida DOT District 7 camp on McKinley Drive in Tampa (located south of the University of South Florida's main Tampa Campus on Fowler Avenue) like to come up with creative ways to extend the life of a highway sign to get more mileage out of the signage for many years.

OK. Let's zip back on the Howard Frankland Bridge through downtown Tampa over to Fowler Avenue (Exit 51). A project is underway to make two right turn lanes for traffic coming from northbound Interstate 275; this should provide some relief for motorists headed to destinations east of Interstate 275 on Fowler Avenue, particularly the University of South Florida so that students can get to classes on time.

Let's do a U-turn underneath the overpass at Fowler Avenue and head back south on Interstate 275 towards the world's finest airport, Tampa International Airport. As you have noticed, the airport interchange has undergone a major transformation from the short ramps that were built in the early 1970's to the major, if not better, ramps that were built. So, I have added a section of pictures that reflect the newly built ramps of the airport interchange reconstruction project and I have left up the ramps that were built in the early 1970's before construction began so that you can get a good perspective of before and after.

I am also announcing a new feature here on Interstate275Florida.com. As you probably have noticed already, gas prices are topping over the $4.00/gallon mark with no end in sight. Naturally, I can't help tame these high gas prices but I can show you where you can find the cheapest gas out there. As such, I have teamed up with TampaGasPrices.com - part of GasBuddy.com - to provide you with where you can find the cheapest gas prices in the Tampa/St. Petersburg area. So, what are you waiting for? Head on over to the Gas Prices page today!

So, there you have it: Changes and additions to Interstate275Florida.com to help keep up with the construction going on. Keep checking back here at Interstate275Florida.com frequently and often - in fact, put Interstate275Florida.com in your browser's bookmarks so that you can refer to it frequently and often.

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