TAMPA, Fla. — Construction on an important Tampa road has drivers detouring into a traditionally quiet neighborhood, causing all kinds of concerns about speeding, aggressive driving, and even causing a hit-and-run accident involving a dog.
The Riverside Heights neighborhood is nestled between the East side of Hillsborough River and North Boulevard, but the closing of North Boulevard has many residents so upset they are calling Tampa Police for quick action.
Tampa Police are now promising more patrols along North Myrtle Avenue, which runs adjacent to North Boulevard, says the President of the Neighborhood’s civic association.
North Boulevard will be closed for another two weeks as a construction crew lays about 9000 feet of pressurized pipe there and in other parts of Tampa as a way to prevent a nearby pump station from overflowing in the future, as it has during past rainstorms.
A city manager tells ABC Action News that the contractor is racing against the clock to finish laying the pipe before the start of the next rainy season.
It's a $5 million dollar plan that Tampa's Contract Administration Director Michael Chucran calls it an "emergency construction" project after last fall's sewage overflow situation.
