Volume 18 Issue 6
WESLEY CHAPEL Inside:
‘Night Of 5000’ Preview!
March 13, 2010
NEWS
See page 23!
The Direct-Mail Newspaper Serving Wesley Chapel & New Tampa Since 1993! THIS INDEPENDENT COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER IS DIRECTLY MAILED TO: WESLEY CHAPEL: Aberdeen • Belle Chase • Brookside • Chapel Pines • Country Walk • Lexington Oaks • Meadow Pointe • New River • Northwood • Pinewalk • Pine Ridge • Saddlebrook • Saddleridge Estates • Saddlewood • Seven Oaks • Lakes at Northwood • The Villages of Wesley Chapel • Wesley Pointe • Westbrook Estates • Williamsburg NEW TAMPA: Arbor Greene • Cory Lake Isles • Cross Creek • Grand Hampton • Heritage Isles • Hunter’s Green • Hunter’s Key • K-Bar Ranch • Lake Forest • Live Oak Preserve • Pebble Creek • Richmond Place • Tampa Palms • West Meadows
Interstate Construction Keeping Drivers On Their Toes By Michael Smith We’ve been getting quite a few inquiries from local residents and business owners asking about all the highway construction work that’s been going on between the junction of I-75 and I-275 and the S.R. 56 interchange. Well, here’s the scoop: Most of the work that people are seeing in that area is related to the construction of new ramps for northbound drivers on both highways who are exiting the interstate at S.R. 56. According to Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) spokesman John McShaffrey, the new ramps, which will be almost a mile long, will allow drivers who plan to exit the interstate at S.R. 56 to do so well before they reach the busy interchange. The new northbound I-275 exit ramp will cross over I-75, while I-75 will be widened and resurfaced, and will include a new bridge over Cypress Creek that will accommodate traffic exiting onto S.R. 56. The $29.9 million project also includes the construction of huge new
drainage ponds in the area where the two interstates pass underneath County Line Rd., which are required not only for this project, but also for the eventual widening of I-75 itself. In fact, McShaffrey says that the ramp project actually was originally a component of the widening project, but, since the widening of I-75 from Fowler Ave. all the way up to S.R. 52 is now on hold (at least for the immediate future), because of a lack of funding, FDOT planners last October decided to move forward with the ramp project, which is expected to be finished by the summer of 2012. “It was pulled out of the widening project for two reasons,” McShaffrey says. “One, because we can afford it now, and two, because it will provide a tremendous benefit to motorists.” As anyone who regularly uses the S.R. 56 interchange knows, that area has been difficult to traverse ever since it opened in 2002, but even more so recently, with the influx of new residential communities and businesses all along the S.R. 56 corridor. Motorists
By summer 2012, drivers reaching the apex of I-75 and I-275 will no longer have to cross over multiple lanes of traffic to get to or around the S.R. 56 exit ramp. coming north on I-275 have had to will be taken out of the mix of ongoing attempt to cross two or three lanes of traffic,” he says. traffic coming north on I-75 in order to According to the most recent trafget [all the way to the right] to the S.R fic studies, which were conducted in 56 exit on the east side of the highway, 2008, there were 119,000 vehicles per all while northbound motorists coming day on the stretch of I-75 between the on I-75 had to fight through that traffic I-275 exit and the S.R. 56 exit (both in order to continue on their way past northbound and southbound), with the exit. The new ramps will eliminate about 22,500 of those accessing the all that merging and confusion, offramp at S.R. 56 from northbound IMcShaffrey says. 75. The congestion at the interchange “Once the (ramp) project is comSee “Construction” on page 6. plete, every motorist exiting to S.R. 56
Sheriff White Reports That Pasco’s Crime Rate Dropped In 2009
NEIGHBORHOOD MAGAZINE!
Meet State House Candidate Elena McCullough, High School Winter Sports Wrap-Up & More!
Night Of 5000 To Benefit Young Burn Victims, Neighborhood Nibbles & Much More!
See pages 3-22!
See pages 23-36!
ECRWSS
LOCAL NEWS, BUSINESS & SPORTS UPDATES
were even more impressive, considering that even though the county’s population rose once again last year, the per capita number of crimes decreased. “These numbers indicate that the deputies of Pasco County are hard at work fighting crime in the county,” Sheriff White said. “When we look at crime statistics, we look at the trend, and these numbers show that overall, crime is trending downward.” According to PCSO spokesman Doug Tobin, there were a number of See “News Briefs” on page 8.
Postal Customer
Also Inside This Issue!
(down 6.4 percent); burglary (down 5.7 percent); larceny (down 7.7 percent); and motor vehicle theft (down 21.5 percent). Robbery (7.3-percent higher) was the only categoSheriff Bob ry that increased White from ‘08. Overall, White said, the total number of reported crimes in the county decreased by 7.8 percent, including a 3.6-percent decrease in violent crimes and an 8.2-percent decrease in non-violent crimes. White noted that ‘09 was the second consecutive year that the county’s violent crime index had decreased, and said that the numbers
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Pasco County Sheriff Bob White held an impromptu press conference on February 26 to announce that crime in the unincorporated areas of the county (which includes Wesley Chapel) dropped by nearly 8 percent in 2009, when compared with 2008.
According to the statistics, the number of crimes in six of the seven categories that are tracked by the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office (PCSO), the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Federal Bureau of Investigation dropped in 2009. Those categories include: murder (which was down 50 percent); forcible sex offenses
Dated Material Please Rush!
By Michael Smith
For Advertising Information Call 813-910-2575 • Volume 18, Issue 6 • March 13, 2010 • www.WCNeighborhoodNews.com
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