As Clearwater celebrates 100 years as a city, transportation in the area has changed dramatically, and more changes in are the works for the coming years.
In 1915, getting around looked a lot different in the Clearwater area. A narrow brick road was the main highway in from the east. In the 1920s, Mandalay Road was just sand and dirt.
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Now, there’s plenty of pavement. There’s also a lot of traffic.
"I notice particularly trying to get to the beach right there at the roundabout coming out of Island Estates, it gets very congested and backed up,” said tourist Amy Jackson.
“The traffic is just insane,” said tourist Laura Potter. “I mean it’s not that far to get in to Clearwater Beach, but you know, it can take you 30 minutes.”
Traffic expert Chuck Henson points out the traffic tie-ups.
“There’s just no good way, right now, to get to Clearwater,” said Henson, "If you have to commute in and out of there, you see that crazy grind every day. Then you get to the weekends, and Clearwater Beach becomes the epicenter of all things fun and exciting. And then, there is only the Memorial Causeway."
Florida Department of Transportation projects are expected to help. Improvements to U.S. 19 will be complete next month.
“We have new interchanges,” said FDOT spokesperson Kris Carson. “We’re also re-doing all the bridges there at State Road 60, and the Enterprise Road signal was removed. A series of frontage roads were built, so you’re going to have a lot more free-flowing traffic.”
FDOT’s Gateway Project will be making a direct connection from I-275 to U.S. 19. Construction is expected to begin on that project in the fall of 2016.
Still, some drivers would like to see a bigger interstate plan.
“Almost like I-4 - you know how it runs east to west - something like that just to get you to the beach,” suggested Potter.
FDOT officials said that's not likely to happen anytime soon.
"Clearly what the city leaders and in Pinellas County need to do, is to come up with some great new thinking as to how to get people across that span to the beach," said Henson.
A new ferry is already taking employees and others across the water to the beach as a way to avoid the traffic.
It’s another way of getting around, as Clearwater moves in to the next hundred years.