The Lee Roy Selmon Expressway, originally known as the Southern Crosstown Expressway is a 14.168-mile (22.801 km) all-electronic, limited access toll road in Hillsborough County, Florida, It connects the South Tampa neighborhood near MacDill Air Force Base with Downtown Tampa and the bedroom community of Brandon. The expressway was built in stages, opening between 1976 and 1987.
The expressway was supposed to be part of a multi-expressway system that failed in the 1970s due to heavy local opposition and financial burdens. The original designation for the expressway was State Road 449, but was switched to State Road 618, which remained a hidden designation until the early 2000s, when it began appearing on maps and atlases.
The expressway features an elevated bridge, that became the world's first reversible, all-electronic, elevated express lane project, which opened in 2006, and has the hidden designation of State Road 618A. The entire expressway ended cash collection on September 17th, 2010, going all-electronic for both the express lanes and the main expressway.
The expressway was renamed Lee Roy Selmon Crosstown Expressway in 1999, in honor of former Tampa Bay Buccaneers hall-of-fame football player Lee Roy Selmon. The "Crosstown" portion of the name was dropped in 2008, although it is still sometimes colloquially referred to as the "Crosstown".
Read more about Lee Roy Selmon Expressway: Route Description, Exit List
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