St. Petersburg seeks money to plan MLK, 8th Street two-way conversion

Florida Department of Transportation will study “best course of action” for Interstate 175 in 2025.

ST. PETERSBURG — The city is seeking more than a million in federal dollars to plan for converting two of downtown’s busiest drags — 8th Street and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Street — into two-way streets.

With Interstate 175 as a backdrop, U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Tampa, and St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch announced the $1.2 million funding request at a Tuesday news conference at Campbell Park. They said the project would reconnect the neighborhoods south of Tropicana Field that were blocked off from downtown by one-way streets and the 1970s construction of I-175, which Castor called a “colossal mistake.”