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State Road 618 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lee Roy Selmon Expressway | ||||
 SR 618 highlighted in red | ||||
| Route information | ||||
| Maintained by Tampa-Hillsborough Expressway Authority | ||||
| Length | 14.132 mi[1] (22.743 km) | |||
| Existed | 1976–present | |||
| Major junctions | ||||
| West end |  US 92 in Tampa | |||
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| East end |  I-75 near Brandon | |||
| Location | ||||
| Country | United States | |||
| State | Florida | |||
| Counties | Hillsborough | |||
| Highway system | ||||
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The Lee Roy Selmon Expressway is a 14.168-mile (22.801 km) controlled-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. An approximately 1.9-mile extension to the thoroughfare's western terminus opened to traffic on Monday, April 19, 2021.[2]
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 it was switched to State Road 618, which remained a hidden designation until the early 2000s when it began appearing on maps and in atlases.
The expressway features an elevated bridge, the world's first reversible, all-electronic, elevated express lane project, opened in 2006, called the Reversible Express Lanes and with the hidden designation of State Road 618A.[1] The entire expressway ended cash collection on September 17, 2010, going to the state's All-Electronic Tolling system for both the REL and the main expressway.
The expressway, originally known as the Southern Crosstown Expressway, was renamed Lee Roy Selmon 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. By 2020, the Crosstown signs were removed, and navigation systems were updated to "Selmon Expressway" or "SR 618".
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- ^ a b "Florida Department of Transportation Interchange Report" (PDF). Florida Department of Transportation. November 24, 2008. p. 18. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 8, 2012. Retrieved July 27, 2009.
- ^ Hawley, Catherine (April 16, 2021). "Final Selmon Expressway extension over Gandy Blvd. opens Monday". Fox 13 Tampa Bay.