Freight Corridors This technical appendix to the Tampa Bay Regional Goods Movement Study focuses on the regional freight mobility corridors located within the five-county region of Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco, Hernando, and Citrus Counties that together comprise District VII of the Florida Department of Transportation. This document provides a list of regionally significant goods movement corridors to help focus improvement efforts on corridors with the most impact on local and regional economies. These corridors include sections of the Strategic Intermodal System highways, the Florida Intrastate Highway System (FIHS), and regional connectors as well as the CSX rail corridors that serve the Tampa Bay Region. Corridor Highlights: • Location and description of the highway or rail facility and adjacent land use. • Scheduled and planned improvements • Train activity on rail corridors • Freight related problems and corrective actions identified/implemented What you need to know: • This document provides a detailed description of each of the freight mobility corridors. • This document can be used as a starting point to help • Develop long-range comprehensive and transportation plans; • Make zoning decisions regarding land use along designated freight corridors; • Provide weight in selecting cost affordable road projects that are of economic; importance to the community; and • Designate new areas for development into freight activity centers. What you need to do: • Find ways to improve access to existing freight activity centers. • Designate a Freight Advisory Committee within the MPOs to provide expertise and advocacy on freight issues. • Develop new land use policies that insulate industrial areas and their access corridors from residential encroachment. • Know what you have--Consider detailed corridor studies for each of the designated Regional Freight Mobility Corridors focusing physical and operational improvements that will make the movement of goods easier. CHAPTER 1.0 INTRODUCTION This supporting document to the Tampa Bay Regional Goods Movement Study focuses on the regional freight mobility corridors located within the five-county region of Citrus, Hernando, Hillsborough, Pasco, and Pinellas Counties that together comprise District VII of the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT). The Study was developed in response to local freight mobility concerns and provisions set forth in the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21). This document identifies and describes the regionally significant goods movement corridors in the region to help focus improvement efforts on corridors with the most impact on local and regional economies. These corridors include roadways on the Strategic Intermodal System (SIS), the Florida Intrastate Highway System (FIHS), and regional connectors as well as the CSX Transportation (CSXT) rail corridors that serve the Tampa Bay Region. The Tampa Bay Region’s economic productivity is dependent on a transportation system that can handle goods efficiently and safely. Tampa Bay’s seaports, airports, and railroads have long been a cornerstone of the area’s economic prosperity. These intermodal activity centers are projected to have continued growth in the foreseeable future. This growth will largely depend upon the ability to improve and maintain efficient transportation connections to all parts of the region and surrounding areas. Improving the transportation system that serves intermodal centers and other economic activity centers is an important factor in attracting new industry and higher paying jobs that will stimulate the local economy and provide local governments with higher tax revenues. FDOT D7 1-1 APRIL 2006 The regional freight transportation network can be divided into three systems: highway corridors, rail corridors, and waterways. These complementary systems are essential for moving goods within the region. The area’s roadway system is the foundation of effective and efficient goods movement in the region. Like the seaports, airports, and railroads, virtually every business and household in the region is dependent to some extent on the mobility of trucks for shipping and receiving goods. Trucks are an important means of sustaining the community by delivering products to stores for purchase; transporting raw materials and finished products for industries; hauling materials for the construction of roads, schools, businesses, and homes; and other important functions. Trailers and containers are not simply boxes filled with goods that clog our highways but rather, represent many of the positive aspects of a thriving economy. Providing a safe, well-planned, surface transportation system to efficiently move goods while preserving personal mobility is becoming an increasingly significant concern as our roads become more congested. DRAFT CHAPTER 1.0 – INTRODUCTION 1-2 FREIGHT MOBILITY CORRIDORS Regional Freight Mobility Corridors play a key role in transporting goods and raw materials beyond the local area. Major emphasis is placed on the uninterrupted movement of goods between major freight activity centers and the statewide Regional Freight Mobility Corridors strategic freight corridors. They improve the general circulation of traffic by focusing regional and interstate truck activity on certain designated roadway facilities. Regional Freight Mobility Corridors Regional Freight Mobility Corridors were designated throughout the region to provide include roadways, rail lines, and a transportation network for the efficient movement of goods while minimizing waterways that are essential to efficient potential impacts of trucking to community assets such as neighborhoods and movement of goods to, from, and within ecosystems. the region. The regional corridors include all of the designated freight related The purpose of designating these corridors is to influence regional economic facilities of the Statewide Strategic development through the implementation of policies and actions that will improve Intermodal System in the region and other and preserve freight mobility in the corridors. The Regional Freight Mobility Corridors regional freight corridors serving were identified by reviewing and evaluating the Statewide Strategic Trade Corridors important regional freight activity included in FDOT’s Multimodal Trade Corridor Assessment Study (Phase I) and the centers. Florida Freight Network and Modal Connector Study (Phase II), the Strategic Intermodal System Plan, and the freight activity centers defined in the Tampa Bay Regional Goods Movement Study. Freight Mobility "Hot Spots" are identified, where appropriate, along the corridors. Hot spots are locations that impede trucking operations. The purpose of identifying these locations is to help prioritize funding to implement the appropriate solutions in the near term that will improve goods movement and safety along the corridor. "Hot Spots" were identified at numerous locations throughout the region through a combination of trucker surveys and technical staff inputs. The "Hot Spots" identified in this document are only those found on the regional corridors and are a subset of a much broader data set that includes local truck routes and other roads. 1-3 APRIL 2006 The following considerations were used to define Regional Freight Mobility Corridors: Freight Friendly Design Criteria • • The shortest and most direct routes from Provides access to designated regional freight activity centers, major activity centers to the national and statewide strategic highway network • Provides connectivity between freight activity centers, • Grade separations at major intersections • and rail crossings to promote continuous Provides local connectivity between freight activity centers and Statewide movement of traffic and reduce delay Strategic Trade Corridors, • Channelization/separation of thru traffic • Carries significant truck volume, from local traffic through heavily congetsted corridors • Significantly contributes to a reduction of trucks on other roadway corridors, • Longer acceleration and deceleration and lanes to accommodate large trucks • Longer and/or multiple holding/turning • Compatibility of existing and planned land uses in the corridor. lanes at intersections • Wider turning radii to accommodate long Table 1 depicts all of the Regional Freight Mobility Corridors including roadway and tractor trailers rail corridors, as well as the Regional Freight Activity Centers. • Synchronization of traffic signals to accommodate truck flows and to Freight mobility can be preserved and enhanced within these designated minimize delay for all vehicles transportation corridors through the implementation of access management • Improved signage clearly directing freight strategies, “freight friendly” design criteria, land use controls, and the discouragement traffic to the major activity centers such of incompatible land uses adjacent to freight corridors and activity centers. Access as ports, airports, rail intermodal control refers to where and how freight and non-freight vehicles enter and exit the facilities, and industrial parks corridor. Freight-friendly design criteria refers to roadway design improvements that enhance the flow of freight movement and minimize delay wherever possible. Land- use controls/decisions refers to planning and providing for compatible uses in a corridor or reorienting land uses by implementing local policies or land development regulations that specify how land is developed in the corridor. DRAFT CHAPTER 1.0 – INTRODUCTION