By Marianne Brinson and William Jeffries, Jr., Contributing Authors
The Howard Frankland Bridge, connecting Pinellas County to Tampa across the Old Tampa Bay, is the most traveled, and arguably most congested, bridge in this region of Florida.
Originally built as a low-level concrete trestle, the Howard Frankland bridge was conceived and built in the 1950s with just four lanes along with dredged causeways at either end. A low center concrete divider separated oncoming traffic with no emergency lanes, creating difficult driving conditions until a raised concrete wall divider was installed.
To provide additional capacity, a second parallel four-lane bridge span opened in 1991 to carry all southbound traffic, leaving northbound traffic on the original structure, thereby improving safety for all.
The original bridge, now well past its design life, and the newer 1990s bridge system handles an average of 139,000 vehicles daily. Those numbers are expected to increase significantly as the population on each side of the bay continues to rise.
As part of the Florida Department of Transportation’s (FDOT) historic multi-billion-dollar Tampa Bay Next program, the Howard Frankland Bridge modernization project, began in 2020. The first of three primary steps was to build a new eight lane bridge (four general purpose, two tolled express in each direction) as well as a bike/pedestrian path. The second upgraded the existing southbound bridge, and the third removed the original northbound bridge.
Work over the last few years has largely focused on constructing the new modern and resilient bridge, which opened to traffic in March, on schedule and on budget, despite some potentially time and cost busting incidents.
A Bridge in Transition
The new Howard Frankland bridge is 168 feet wide — nearly three times the width of the southbound bridge and the largest, by surface area, bridge in Florida.
