Building the Future: Our horizons are always expanding and the open road never looked so good.

In 1974, construction began on the Selmon Crosstown Expressway, then called the South Crosstown Expressway. The first leg, from Gandy Boulevard to Morgan Street, opened in 1976. In 1981, a portion opened from Morgan Street to U.S. 301. Falkenburg Road and its interchange with Interstate 75 opened in 1996.

The Selmon Crosstown Expressway is a community asset and a vital artery through the heart of Tampa. A limited-access highway linking Interstate 75 in eastern Hillsborough County to Gandy Boulevard and Dale Mabry Highway in south Tampa, it is a primary commuter route to downtown Tampa, the Westshore business district, and MacDill Air Force Base. It also provides local access to Hyde Park, south Tampa, and the Port of Tampa, as well as the commercial and industrial enterprises to the east along State Road 60.

In recent years, increasing traffic has resulted in severe congestion for thousands of daily Expressway commuters. Most of them are going to and from downtown Tampa, which, along with an emerging waterfront district and historic Ybor City, is experiencing an extraordinary renaissance with the development of many new business, cultural, and leisure facilities.

And now, three decades after the Selmon Crosstown Expressway was created, the Authority has embarked on the biggest phase of new growth -- building more than nine miles of reversible express lanes above the current Expressway, scheduled to open summer 2006.

To improve access and capacity on the Selmon Crosstown Expressway, the Authority is building more than nine miles of reversible express lanes, known as the Reversible Lanes Bridge. To preserve the valuable Expressway corridor for future transportation needs, most of the project will be constructed as a handsome three-lane bridge in the Expressway median. This unique structure will allow uninterrupted express travel for commuters. In the morning, the bridge will be one-way from Brandon and I-75 to downtown Tampa. Later in the day, the express lanes will be reversed for one-way traffic in the opposite direction, quickly and efficiently carrying commuters home from work.

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