Will Tampa's Malfunction Junction Ever Function?

     In Employment Review's June 2003 issue, Tampa ranked 12th among "America's Best Places to Live & Work." Tampa was the only Florida city to make the list of 20 cities that were graded by population, cost of living, housing costs, unemployment rate, job growth, and education. It's a good thing Tampa didn't get graded on traffic, because it was the only city in Florida to make another list recently.
     The Traffic Congestion and Reliability: Trends and Advanced Strategies for Congestion Mitigation published by the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration ranks Tampa's "Malfunction Junction" 16th among the nation's major traffic bottlenecks. Malfunction Junction is the busy interchange of I-275 at I-4 near downtown Tampa.
     Although released recently, the report is already out-of-date. The most recent statistics used to rank the nation's major traffic bottlenecks are from 2002. That's about the time that work began to improve the interchange — work that has dragged on for years and only added to the tangled traffic... work that is scheduled for completion early this year. It will be interesting to see whether the improvements will make a difference, or whether this interchange will forever be known as Malfunction Junction.

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