HIL CO 73 page 31

 building of the interstate system, could not afford to, because of the income from
 the gasoline taxes, to build all the interstate that they wanted to at one time.
 Other states did build toll-roads, and then they were contributed to the interstate
 system, and the tolls were [eventually] removed. Therefore, the interstate system
 was completed much sooner.

B: The route that you proposed for a toll-road that went down the west coast south
 of Tampa down to Alligator Alley. Was that route about where 1-75 wound up
 being?

C: The corridor that we were looking at in the Chamber of Commerce and others,
 and this was after my term of office but I was still very active in the development
 of roads and I was county attorney for Hillsborough County at the time, and we
 tried our best. The corridor that was finally set was the corridor that we had
 determined at the time. Now, the exact location of the road could vary 100 yards
 or a quarter of a mile or whatever, whatever at that point in time made sense. But
 that was twenty years later.

B: But your idea was generally to run it down east of the major cities?

C: Right.

B: Inland several miles from the coast, and provide an alternative to 41?

C: The interstate system and the federal bureau of roads had determined that they
 did not want to build the interstate system through cities anymore. They wanted
 to go outside of the city and build an alternate route to downtown, which has
 been done in many, many cases, because it was so expensive to build through
 an urban area that had been developed and you have got to buy right-of-way,
 you have to then remove everything on it, and then you have got to build in the
 congested area.

B: When you came on the road board, was Interstate 4 already pretty well under
 construction through Tampa?

C: The alignment of Interstate 4 had been pretty much set. There was some slight
 variation but only slight. The road had been built in some portion from Orlando to
 Tampa, and during my time in office, we completed it through the city of Tampa
 and all the way over to and through St. Petersburg. I am not sure whether or not
 it was completed through St. Petersburg to the bridge, but the Howard Frankland
 Bridge was built. It was completed during our term in office through Tampa and
 well on the way through Pinellas County.

B: When I researched the construction of the interstate through Tampa, I did not
 find much evidence that people in Tampa had much objection or strong feelings