2. EXISTING CONDITIONS
B. Corridor Context I. Neighborhood
15 th Street, is generally more industrial in nature and features light industrial establishments such as the Robbins Manufacturing Lumber Yard and Frontier Communications vehicle lot. BetweenN. 15 th Street and Livingston Avenue, the corridor is more residential with several large multi-family housing complexes, and smaller neighborhood commercial businesses. On the eastern end of the corridor, from Livingston Avenue to Bruce B Downs Boulevard, the land use is dominated by the James A Haley Veterans’ Hospital and the HART University Area Transit Center. II. Reviewed Plans In order to understand the planning context of the corridor, approximately 20 agency planning documents and studies were reviewed for relevant information. Some of these plans provided insight into the existing conditions. The University Area Community Plan called for improvements to E. 131 st Avenue to support the roadway as an important east-west corridor, and promoted greater flexibility in land use and density for future development. The Hillsborough County Vision Zero Action Plan identified corridors with high rates of severe crashes for different types of users. Although E. 131 st Avenue was not identified as a severe crash corridor, Bruce B Downs Boulevard, N. 15 th Street, and N. Nebraska Avenue within the E. 131 st Avenue study area were included on various high crash corridor lists. The Hillsborough County Comprehensive Bike Plan Update also gave insight to the state of bicycle infrastructure in the area and identified priority corridors for cycling infrastructure. The Tampa Innovation District Master Plan also provided information about the markets, investors, demographics, land use, and planning context of the Innovation District area.
The E. 131 st Avenue corridor is located in an urban section of unincorporated Hillsborough County between the University of South Florida and Interstate 275. Although E. 131 st Avenue has the atmosphere of a neighborhood street, it connects several important community features such as the James A Haley Veterans’ Hospital and the Hillsborough Area Regional Transit (HART) University Area Transit Center. Additionally, E. 131 st Avenue is within close proximity to several other community features, with portions of the corridor less than half a mile from the University Mall, Florida Hospital Tampa, Shriners Children’s Hospital and the University of South Florida. As seen in Figure 2-1 , the project corridor is bookended by N. Nebraska Avenue on the west and Bruce B Downs Boulevard on the east. It is also traversed by several locally-important streets. N. 15 th Street provides access to E. Fletcher Avenue and E. Bearss Avenue to the north and E. Fowler Avenue and Busch Boulevard to the south. The N. 22 nd Street corridor also provides neighborhood access to E. Fletcher and E. Bearss Avenues to the north and University Mall and other regional retail establishments to the south. The intersections of N. 15 th Street and N. 22 nd Street with E. 131 st Avenue may also provide two of the more important bicycle and pedestrian nodes, as they allow circulation throughout the surrounding residential areas and access to neighborhood commercial enterprises. The project corridor of E. 131 st Avenue can be broken down into three distinct areas based on land use and development types. The western portionof theroad, fromN.NebraskaAvenuetoN.
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E. 131 ST AVENUE PLAT STUDY PRELIMINARY LAND USE AND TRANSPORTATION STUDY
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