By Gary S. Hatrick
The public got an opportunity to see the Florida Department of Transportation future plans for US 301 and the city’s alternative side by side at a workshop last week at Alice Hall Community Center.
The state is considering a plan to make US 301 a northbound, three-lane, one-way road through Zephyrhills, while city officials favor an approach that would keep US 301 in its current two-way state.
To this date, plans to improve and widen US 301 are all on paper. City manager Todd Vande Berg said that there are no construction dollars available for any road building at this point and it is anyone’s guess as to when that money will be available. One FDOT representative said that the work could possibly take until 2035.
Vande Berg also said that the construction of several east-west corridors taking traffic past Zephyrhills in the near future could change traffic patterns to where a three-lane highway may not be necessary.
