The Bayside Bridge is a girder bridge in

Pinellas County Pinellas County (, ) is a county located on the west central coast of the U.S. state of Florida. As of the 2020 census, the population was 959,107. The county is part of the Tampa–St. Petersburg– Clearwater, Florida Metropolitan Statistical ...

which crosses over the northwesternmost end of

Tampa Bay Tampa Bay is a large natural harbor and shallow estuary connected to the Gulf of Mexico on the west-central coast of Florida, comprising Hillsborough Bay, McKay Bay, Old Tampa Bay, Middle Tampa Bay, and Lower Tampa Bay. The largest freshwater ...

, connecting Clearwater, Florida and

Largo, Florida Largo is the third largest city in Pinellas County, Florida, United States, as well as the fourth largest in the Tampa Bay area. As of the 2020 Census, the city had a population of 82,500, up from 69,371 in 2000. Largo was first incorporated in ...

. Construction began in the early 1990s and was completed in the summer of 1993, officially opening for traffic on June 2 of that year. Originally conceived in the 1970s as the 49th Street Bridge, a toll-levied part of the Pinellas Parkway, the current six-lane twin-span bridge provides direct, unmitigated access from eastern Clearwater to St. Petersburg/Clearwater International Airport by connecting McMullen Booth Road to 49th Street North and also serves as a bypass for heavily congested

US 19 U.S. Route 19 (US 19) is a north–south U.S. Highway in the Eastern United States. Despite encroaching Interstate Highways, the route has remained a long-haul road, connecting the Gulf of Mexico with Lake Erie. The highway's souther ...

. The speed limit is 55 mph (or about 88 km/h) until McMullen Booth. Due to cambering differences, cars experience bouncing when traveling in the northbound lanes. This occurs for the first (southern) half of the northbound span. It features a

SPUI A single-point urban interchange (SPUI, or ), also called a single-point interchange (SPI) or single-point diamond interchange (SPDI), is a type of highway interchange. The design was created in order to help move large volumes of traffic thr ...

interchange at State Road 60 and a

diamond interchange A diamond interchange is a common type of road junction, used where a controlled-access highway crosses a minor road. Design The freeway itself is grade-separated from the minor road, one crossing the other over a bridge. Approaching the ...

on the south end of the bridge. Along with the bridge, a $12 million interchange was built at the intersection of 49th Street and Roosevelt Boulevard. The bridge was completed before McMullen Booth Road was widened, dumping up to 36,000 cars a day onto the two-lane road. On streets such as Marlo Road, drivers could wait as long as 15 minutes before being able to make a left turn. In 1991, Pinellas County administrator Fred Marquis argued that the cost of the bridge could be funded by a 10-year extension of gasoline taxes. The plan went through as the "Penny for Pinellas" tax. This eliminated the need for a planned $2.5 million, 16-lane toll booth that would have been built on sensitive marshlands at the south end of the bridge.Keep Tolls off the Bayside Bridge
St. Petersburg Times, May 28, 1991 The cost of construction of the bridge is estimated at $71 million. The plan is for the Bayside Bridge to connect to nearby Interstate 275 via the

Gateway Expressway The Gateway Expressway is a toll road under construction in Pinellas County, Florida that is expected to be completed in late 2022 at a cost of $598 million. The project consists of two branches: an elevated highway to be designated State R ...

that started construction in August 2017.

References

External links

County Road 296 Connection Project
at Tampa Bay Interstates site
{{Crossings navbox , structure = Crossings , place =

, bridge = Clearwater Bayside Bridge , bridge signs = , upstream =

Courtney Campbell Causeway The Courtney Campbell Causeway is the northernmost bridge across Old Tampa Bay, carrying State Road 60 between Clearwater, Florida in Pinellas County and Tampa, Florida in Hillsborough County. History The Causeway was commissioned by t ...

, upstream signs = , downstream = Howard Frankland Bridge , downstream signs = Bridges completed in 1993 Bridges in Pinellas County, Florida Buildings and structures in Clearwater, Florida Buildings and structures in Largo, Florida Road bridges in Florida Bridges over Tampa Bay 1993 establishments in Florida Cantilever bridges in the United States