Florida_State_Road_56

Florida State Road 56

Florida State Road 56

Highway in Florida

State Road 56 (SR 56) is a six-lane state highway 6.7 miles (10.8 km) in length that runs from SR 54 east to US Highway 301 (US 301) in Zephyrhills.

Quick Facts State Road 56, Route information ...

Route description

SR 56 begins at a three-way intersection with SR 54. At this point, SR 54 makes a sharp northward turn while SR 56 continues straight on the same roadway.[3] The state road at the beginning of its route is a six-lane avenue that passes through a rural area of Wesley Chapel.[4] After 0.9 miles (1.4 km), SR 56 comes to an interchange with Interstate 75 (I-75).[5] The on-ramps allow access to both northbound and southbound I-75. After its intersection with I-75, SR 56 enters the commercial district of Wesley Chapel.[6] It travels 2.1 miles (3.4 km) through the town before reaching a four-way intersection with SR 581.[7] After this intersection, the speed limit increases to 55 miles per hour (89 km/h), and SR 56 travels another 3.8 miles (6.1 km) through rural Wesley Chapel before approaching an intersection with Meadow Pointe Boulevard.[8][9] The road continues to pass through rural surroundings, and crosses a pair of bridges over the New River (a tributary to the Hillsborough River), entering Zephyrhills, where it has one last major intersection with Morris Bridge Road (County Road 579, CR 579) before terminating at US 301 across from Festival Park.

History

The first segment of SR 56, which stretched from SR 54 to Bruce B. Downs Boulevard (SR/CR 581), opened on March 28, 2002, after three years of construction. The highway allows a more-direct access to I-75 two miles (3.2 km) north of the northern terminus of I-275, as opposed to SR 54, which parallelled I-75 for about three miles (4.8 km) before meeting at its interchange.

The first phase of expansion, from Bruce B. Downs to Meadow Pointe Boulevard, began construction in March 2008 to mark the imminent opening of the Shops at Wiregrass.[10] On July 31, 2010, after numerous delays,[citation needed] this extension of SR 56 opened for vehicular traffic. An extension to US 301 in Zephyrhills was being planned by the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT), and has been part of the plan since the highway's conception.[11] The project was previously expected to be completed by the end of 2019,[citation needed] but finally reached US 301 on July 10, 2019.[12]

A diverging diamond interchange with I-75 was initially proposed in May 2018;[13] construction on the revamped interchange began in February 2019 and was completed in 2022.[14]

Major intersections

The entire route is in Pasco County.

More information Location, mi ...

References

  1. [1]
    "FDOT straight line diagrams". Archived from the original on March 6, 2014. Retrieved February 14, 2014.
  2. [2]
    "Motorists Overjoyed". St. Petersburg Times. March 29, 2002. Retrieved March 28, 2010.
  3. [3]
    Google. "State Rd 56, Florida" (Map). Google Maps. Google.
  4. [4]
    Google (March 2011). "State Rd 56, Wesley Chapel, Florida". Google Street View. Google.
  5. [5]
    Google. "Wesley Chapel Blvd to State Rd 56" (Map). Google Maps. Google.
  6. [6]
    Google (February 2023). "State Rd 56, Wesley Chapel, Florida". Google Street View. Google.
  7. [7]
    Google. "State Rd 56 to State Rd 56" (Map). Google Maps. Google.
  8. [8]
    Google (February 2023). "State Rd 56, Wesley Chapel, Florida". Google Street View. Google.
  9. [9]
    Google. "State Rd 56 to Meadow Pointe Blvd" (Map). Google Maps. Google.
  10. [10]
    Wiatrowski, Kevin (March 18, 2008). "S.R. 56 gets scooped for extension". The Tampa Tribune. Archived from the original on February 3, 2013. Retrieved February 15, 2020.
  11. [11]
    Yap, Chuin-Wei (October 20, 2006). "State Road 56 extension to start by spring". Tampa Bay Times. Archived from the original on February 2, 2013. Retrieved February 15, 2020.
  12. [12]
    "New 4-lane road in Pasco County connects drivers to I-75". WFTS. July 9, 2019.
  13. [13]
    "Florida has a gem of an idea to move traffic on and off I-75. It's called diverging diamonds". Tampa Bay Times. Retrieved May 27, 2018.
  14. [14]
    "Construction On Diverging Diamond Underway In Wesley Chapel". WUSF News. February 25, 2019. Retrieved February 26, 2019.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Florida State Road 56.
KML file (edit • help)
Template:Attached KML/Florida State Road 56
KML is from Wikidata
Share this article:

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Florida_State_Road_56, and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.