Clearwater Council tables vote on Drew Street project’s fate

CLEARWATER — A long-delayed plan to overhaul Drew Street is not dead, but its future is uncertain.

City Council members voted unanimously Thursday to table a decision on whether to rescind the project in order to answer more questions about the central concept of reconfiguring the travel lanes, or find alternatives to it.

The Florida Department of Transportation has spent $2 million and completed about 20% of the design on a safety plan to change Drew Street from four travel lanes to two in the 2.3 miles between Osceola Avenue and Keene Road, and add a center turn lane for most of that portion.

But with three new council members elected in March, a majority now disagrees with their predecessors’ blessing of the concept. They are skeptical of the state experts’ data showing the lane reconfiguration will reduce crashes without congesting traffic.

Mayor Bruce Rector said the majority of residents he heard from on the campaign trail were opposed to a lane elimination. But residents on both sides of the issue filled the council chambers on Thursday to plead their cases on the Drew Street concept, which the city first greenlit in 2018 after wide community input.

“We need to come up with some kind of solution, because now it’s different than the first time I voted on it,” said council member David Allbritton, who was first elected in 2018. “People don’t want a lane elimination, so things change. So our job is to find what that solution is that will be good for everybody.”

Rector said he’s doubtful the pause until the June 6 meeting will change any council member’s opposition to the lane elimination. But he wants to “work to find compromise” with other solutions to the road to retain $20 million in federal funding that’s been allocated.

“The discussion was becoming too much about safety and there is no dispute among this council about safety,” Rector said. “We all want safety.”

Whit Blanton, executive director of Forward Pinellas, the county’s transportation planning agency, said he’s open to working with city and state officials on ways to amend the plan. But alternatives could be complex.

Blanton said the most pressing safety issue on Drew Street is the lack of separation between opposing lanes of traffic west of Keene Road. The lanes are too narrow and drivers speed well past the 35 mph and 40 mph limits.

The Department of Transportation’s preferred solution is the lane elimination and center turn lane. The most recent computer modeling projections through 2045 showed this modification would reduce crashes by 57% with minimal diversion of traffic to surrounding roads. Since 2015, there have been seven fatalities on the stretch with 1,586 crashes and 620 injuries — 55 of them serious injuries. The concept also includes expanded sidewalks, improved crosswalks and creation of a bike lane.

“We’ve spent a long time getting to this point,” Blanton said. “I don’t think it can get unresolved real quickly but … I want to work in any way possible to figure out a way to make this work.”

Council members raised the idea of widening the road instead. But that approach has engineering issues that could take 18 months to investigate, Blanton said: “I don’t think in the next two weeks we’re going to be able to solve that engineering problem.”

Blanton told the council he needs an answer on the project by June 10, when the Forward Pinellas board will adopt its transportation improvement plan. If the Drew Street project does not move forward, Blanton said the $20 million must be allocated to another project in Pinellas for fiscal year 2026 or it will be lost to another county in west central Florida.

“We have to think for the best interest of the county where that $20 million can make the most bang for the buck,” Blanton said.

But Rector said he spoke with state Department of Transportation leadership this week and confirmed the lane elimination is not tied to the $20 million, meaning there is opportunity to amend the plan and keep the funding.

“We have all the support we need from the county and from the state to make sure that this gets figured out the right way,” Rector said.

Residents in favor of the current plan implored council members not to derail what they see as a long-term fix to a decadeslong problem.

“We don’t want to see anyone else losing their life,” Gladys Andrews said.

In April 2023, the previous council voted 3-1 to allow the state to advance the design after years of delay. But then, amid concerns from chamber of commerce leaders, the Legislature intervened and required the department to conduct another study. As that was completed, the new majority in opposition took office.

In addressing the council on Thursday, former City Council member Jay Polglaze said he saw politics behind the pushback. With no city or county funding required for the project, he said this was the last chance to bring meaningful safety improvements to the corridor.

“What I’m concerned about is that we’re not going forward with this project because of the opinion of a few powerful, influential people that don’t believe and don’t rely on data, and I believe this data,” Polglaze said. “After two studies from FDOT, why would they lie?”

The state’s study accounted for traffic, development and population projections through 2045, including the new Coachman Park amphitheater and proposed hotel and apartment projects surrounding it, said Justin Hall, the department’s director of transportation development.

But Scott Sousa, general manager at the Clear Sky on Cleveland restaurant, echoed downtown boosters’ fears that the lane elimination would stifle downtown growth.

“Pushing it down to one lane is a problem,” Sousa said. “There’s going to be way more going on (downtown) and we need to plan for that.”

Business owner Mike Mastruserio urged the council to find other solutions to the safety problem on Drew Street, like writing more speeding tickets.

Council member Mike Mannino said he was open to looking for other solutions like speed bumps and pedestrian crossings, but said finding an alternative plan by June 6 “doesn’t sound realistic.”

“I’m open to more time to discuss this. I just hope that we’re not getting to a place where we’re kicking a can down a road,” Mannino said.