Courtney Campbell Causeway in Tampa, Florida

The Courtney Campbell Causeway is the northernmost bridge across Old Tampa Bay, carrying State Road 60 between Tampa and Clearwater, according to the Florida Scenic Highways Program run by the Florida Department of Transportation.

The program treats the causeway as a 10-mile scenic byway in FDOT District 7, designated on May 23, 2005. It describes a drive that runs at sea level along the bay, with a paved multi-use trail parallel to the road for its entire length, and wildlife that depends on the causeway for food, shelter and breeding. From Tampa, the program's directions are to take I-275 to exit 39, the SR 60 West exit on the left toward Clearwater.

A regional agency keeps the designation in good standing. The Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council says it is the Corridor Management Entity for the Courtney Campbell Scenic Highway and coordinates the Courtney Campbell Scenic Highway Corridor Advisory Committee, which brings together representatives of every local government and planning agency that touches the highway. The council describes its own role as administrative support; most of the committee's work is done by volunteers from businesses, government groups and citizens. Its posted meeting materials show four committee meetings in 2026, on January 16, April 17, August 21 and October 16, and the council also posts the scenic highway's annual reports and corridor management plan.

Its formal name is slightly different from the one most people use. The State Archives of Florida notes that the road was officially dedicated as the Courtney Campbell Parkway, although it is frequently called the Courtney Campbell Causeway in newspapers, official maps and other documents. FDOT's own project pages today use Courtney Campbell Causeway SR 60.

The road opened in June 1934 as the Davis Causeway, named for the Texas engineer who designed and helped finance it, according to a catalogue note from the State Archives of Florida.

The archives give the full original name as the Ben T. Davis Causeway.

Earlier accounts of the private toll road, its cost and its purchase by public agencies circulate in road histories and newspaper features, but the official records checked for this page do not state those details, so they are not repeated here. The archives note is attached to a 1949 postcard published in Chicago by C.T. Art.

In 1948 the Pinellas County Commission renamed the route for Courtney Campbell, a member of the State Road Board who was instrumental in obtaining funding for beautification projects along both sides of the road, according to the State Archives of Florida.

Those beautification projects shaped how the road was sold to visitors. The 1949 postcard's accompanying note describes the Courtney Campbell Parkway as connecting Tampa and Clearwater, with bridges spanning the bay at intervals, picnicking areas all along the parkway for residents and tourists, and fishing as one of the favorite sports along it.

The builder's name did not disappear. The City of Tampa's beach listings place Ben T Davis Beach at 7740 W Courtney Campbell Causeway, so the name of the 1934 causeway's namesake still sits on the Tampa end of the road that replaced his name with Campbell's.

The causeway is the northern member of three Old Tampa Bay crossings, and the Howard Frankland Bridge was built between it and the Gandy Bridge, according to Hillsborough County.

The county's profile of Howard Frankland says he was long an advocate of a cross-bay span between the Gandy Bridge and the Courtney Campbell Causeway and was on the State Road Board when the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce suggested naming the new bridge for him. The bridge opened in 1960, with Governor LeRoy Collins among the dignitaries at the January ceremony, and it became the northbound span when a second, parallel bridge for southbound traffic opened in 1990.

The Scenic Highways Program's directions to the causeway run along I-275 to exit 39, and the eastern limit of the FDOT corridor study is just west of SR 589, the Veterans Expressway, in Hillsborough County. The county page adds that FDOT is vetting improvements to the twin Howard Frankland spans, including express lanes, a bicycle path and accommodations for light rail if approved.

Ben T Davis Beach, one of four beaches the City of Tampa manages along Tampa Bay, sits on the causeway at 7740 W Courtney Campbell Causeway, 33607, according to the City of Tampa.

The city lists metered parking there at $2.50 an hour. Its four beaches, Ben T. Davis, Picnic Island, Cypress Point and Davis Islands, are open from sunrise to sunset, and the city points visitors to the state's Florida Healthy Beaches website for the latest water test results before a trip.

The beach entrance is also the western limit of FDOT's current repaving project on the Tampa end, which runs east to Bayport Drive, so night lane closures near the beach are possible until the estimated fall 2027 completion (details below).

FDOT is repaving 1.788 miles of SR 60 on the Tampa end of the causeway, from west of the Ben T Davis Beach entrance to east of Bayport Drive, under project 450337-1-52-01.

Construction started on September 24, 2026, at a cost of $7.1 million, with completion estimated for fall 2027 and Preferred Materials, Inc. as the contractor. Besides the main lanes, the work mills and resurfaces the frontage roads and ramps on the north and south sides of SR 60 and updates signage, pavement markings, signals, lighting, pedestrian features and guardrail. Work runs day and night, and lane closures for paving happen at night from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m.; FDOT says access to driveways, sidewalks and side streets is to be maintained.

The project page posted a specific closure for this week: SR 60 lane closures from Bay Harbor Drive to Bayport Drive, Sunday, October 18 through Thursday, October 22, nights from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. The project information line is 813-975-6204.

A longer-range study covers the whole crossing. FDOT's SR 60 and Courtney Campbell Causeway Project Development and Environment study spans 9.5 miles from CR 611 (McMullen Booth Road) in Pinellas County to west of SR 589, the Veterans Expressway, in Hillsborough County. Its stated purpose is to provide additional capacity, bicycle and pedestrian improvements, and hardening improvements along the corridor between Clearwater and Tampa. A study is not a construction schedule, and the page lists no construction dates for it.

Last verified: October 18, 2026, using the two FDOT Tampa Bay project pages for SR 60, the Florida Scenic Highways Program byway page, the State Archives of Florida postcard record, the City of Tampa beaches page, the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council's scenic highway committee page and Hillsborough County's Howard Frankland profile.