Neighborhoods join forces to shut down Starkey Road project

LARGO — Seven neighborhoods have banded together to block a plan to widen part of Starkey Road to six lanes from four.

And they have a sympathetic ear from at least one county commissioner.

"We talked about not even widening it," said County Commissioner Karen Seel, who shared her own concerns about the safety of pedestrians and bicyclists.

For now, Seel said, the county is looking at where the span, from Ulmerton Road to East Bay Drive, will be widened and how.

But the plans to expand most of the 11/2-mile stretch likely will go on, county staff members said.

"We're still planning on widening it. It just might look different," said county project manager Paul Bellhorn.

Over the next couple of months, the county staff will work with Largo, which has its own vision for making the area more pedestrian-friendly.

Residents' biggest concern is that the roadway would be widened unnecessarily, said Linda McKenna, organizer of the neighborhood coalition.

"If they were to make it six lanes, we'd have a continuous traffic problem," said McKenna, whose coalition represents more than 3,000 residents.

Neighbors worry more lanes will increase pollution, and curb their safety and quality of life.

"It's not just a road to get from A to B," McKenna said Tuesday. "It's a community road."

The plan to widen the corridor from Tyrone Boulevard, where the corridor is called Park Street, to East Bay Drive in Largo, has been in the works for at least two decades, according to Brian Smith, executive director of the Pinellas County Metropolitan Planning Organization.

The intent of the expansion, officials have said, is to ease congestion along the major north-south traffic artery.

Hoping to convince the county to take a more holistic approach, neighbors invited a consultant from Glatting Jackson Kercher Anglin, a community planning and design firm, to give an educational session about making communities more livable. A handful of city and county officials and staff members attended the presentation Tuesday at Paradise Island mobile home park.

Options for the span could come before county commissioners within a month or two. But reconstruction of the roadway is at least five years away.

"There's a lot of time to work with it," Seel said.