Please tell county planners to include South County Greenways bike/pedestrian trails in their 20-year funding plan. These bikeways & paved trails have been promised to us for decades, in several plans, but important connector trails are now are left out of this plan, and so are not slated for funding in the next 20 years!
If you can’t attend, please provide comments BEFORE THE HEARING.
In the MPO 2035 plan, please include south county greenways trails — not just in the “needs list,” but in the 20-year Funding Plan. Of particular importance is the east-west bikeway loop along Shell Point Rd. and 19th Ave., which would CONNECT the South Coast Greenways Trail, with Ruskin’s bus-stop transit hub & town center, 2 schools (HCC campus & Lennard High School), 2 parks (E.G. Simmons Park & Wolfbranch Creek nature preserve) 2 libraries (Ruskin Branch & South Shore Regional), a post office, as well as hooking into the bike paths that connect Ruskin, Mira Bay, Apollo Beach, Sun City Center & businesses on Hwy. 41 & 301.
South County citizens have been working with the county for many years on several plans that include these bike/pedestrian trails (including the Southshore Areawide Systems Plan and the Ruskin Community Plan). We’ve worked with developers over the years to add bike lanes connecting to this promised loop in anticipation that these Greenways will someday be built. These projects are on the “needs list,” but if they are not included in the 20-year funding plan (“Cost Affordable Maps”), we will never see them built in our lifetimes. This is especially disappointing since several trails & bikeways in other parts of the county are slated for funding, but only one is funded here. That one trail, the South Coast Greenway, needs the connections provided by the Shell Point/19th Av. loop bikeways to make it a viable part of our south county communities.
The Tampa Bay area is the second most dangerous place in America for cyclists. This is our chance to provide safe alternative transportation pathways for cyclists & pedestrians in south Hillsborough, connecting neighborhoods to bus transit, schools, libraries, post office, parks and businesses.