• Ulmterton Road widening.
  • Ulmterton Road widening.
  • Ulmterton Road widening.
  • Ulmterton Road widening.

Project Details

Description Transportation
Highways & Roads
Engineering
Civil Engineering
Location Pinellas County, FL
Client/Owner Florida Department of Transportation, District Seven
Awards Ranked Sixth in the Roads & Bridges Top 10 Roads of 2009

Questions?

If you have questions about this project or service, reach out to our team of experts.

Contact Us

Ulmerton Road Widening

During design for the widening of Ulmerton Road in Pinellas County, Florida, RS&H identified an innovative solution that saved the Florida Department of Transportation over $13 million in right-of-way costs, while simultaneously accommodating two adjacent projects for the county.

In addition to widening 1.5 miles of the corridor while adding bicycle lanes and five-foot sidewalks, the original design called for extending the road north to avoid impacts to a large and unsafe drainage ditch along the south side of the corridor. Shifting the roadway north would require substantial right-of-way acquisition. However, since the ditch was within the existing right-of-way, RS&H recommended creating a box culvert to convey the stormwater in lieu of the ditch, thus allowing the corridor to shift south instead. This alternative reduced costs from just over $17 million to approximately $3.48 million and ultimately improved safety within the corridor.

Early in the project, the team also learned that the county was planning to extend the multi-use Pinellas Trail by constructing a $3.5 million pedestrian bridge over Ulmerton Road. The county also planned improvements to the intersecting Cross Bayou Canal, which is a designated blueway. To accommodate both projects, RS&H designed a three-span concrete bridge for Ulmerton Road’s crossing of the canal, which also included a pedestrian ramp that merged the trail extension with the newly widened roadway. This alternative added to the cost of the widening project, but ultimately saved over $1.5 million from what the county would have spent on a completely separate pedestrian bridge.