Peterson Road: The Missing Piece To The Upper Tampa Bay Trail Extension?
Does it bother you that the Upper Tampa Bay Trail extension won't include Peterson Road at this time?
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Westchase Patch reported yesterday that a little more than four miles would be added to the Upper Tampa Bay Trail over next year. The expansion would take the trail from Van Dyke Road (just east of Gunn Highway) through the Booker Creek Preserve and wind down Lutz Lake Fern Road, ending at the Suncoast Parkway.
In total the trail would be 11.35 miles, but there is a gap between Peterson Road and Van Dyke Road. The stretch of land connects the existing trail with the new addition.
Some of our readers on Facebook questioned why the county didn't include this in its expansion.
County Project Manager Richard Sanders had to say this about it:
"We’re still working on that as a whole project," he said. "It's just one of those things where we got the property plus we had the preserve already.
"It was easier to do this piece at this time. Now once this gets going, that extra piece is the top priority in the county for trail projects."
So what do you think? Will it make it less appealing to use the trail expansion without Peterson Road's inclusion? Tell us in the comments.
Sherri Lonon
7:46 pm on Thursday, August 9, 2012
What's your favorite thing about the Upper Tampa Bay Trail?
Zercov Badinoff
2:27 pm on Wednesday, August 15, 2012
"Will it make it less appealing to use the trail expansion without Peterson Road's inclusion"? Of course it will. the UTBT is nice but too short.
If you were cool you'd look into why the expansion north of Patterson failed. There's currently about 500 paved yards to nowhere North of Patterson. What greedy land-owner blocked the further expansion (OK, I know, he was just trying to get his "share").
I moved here for a healthy lifestyle - little did I know that this place would become the poster city for 400 pound types like Chris Christie. If CC had his way he'd sell of the whole trail for an oil pipeline.