The Touchpoint Trailhead Is Closed Until 2027. Where Odessa Gets on the Suncoast Trail This Fall

You can still ride the Suncoast Trail past SR 54. What has moved is the place you start. The trailhead at the end of Touchpoint Drive has been closed around the clock since June 23, 2026, and it is expected to stay closed until the end of the project, which FDOT now puts at summer 2027. Pasco County's suggested replacement is in Hillsborough County, on Lutz Lake Fern Road.

This month that road is also part of Hillsborough County's official detour around a Gunn Highway closure near the Pasco line. So the trail's new front door and a county detour share one road this fall, and that is worth knowing before you load the bikes on a Saturday morning.

What closed, and what stayed open

On its project page, FDOT lists the work as a $9 million pedestrian overpass carrying the Suncoast Trail over SR 54, filed under Odessa in Pasco County. Construction started June 22, 2026, and Cone & Graham, Inc. is the contractor. To make room for the bridge, crews are rebuilding the existing trail. The street-level crossing of SR 54 stays in place for people on foot and on bikes, with short pedestrian detours planned while crews work overhead. FDOT expects the trail to stay open to users the whole time.

That leaves you with three separate situations:

• The trail itself: open, with a street-level SR 54 crossing and occasional short detours.
• The Touchpoint Drive trailhead: closed 24 hours a day, north side of SR 54, through summer 2027.
• The crossing experience: changing as the overpass goes up, so the setup you see one week may differ the next.

The trailhead closure is the change that touches your weekend routine. A trail that stays open is only as easy to use as the nearest place to park, and the nearest Pasco parking on this stretch is now fenced off.

The front door moved to Lutz Lake Fern Road

Pasco County didn't sugarcoat the closure. Tampa Bay Beacons reported that the county announced it in a June 9 social media post, which pointed trail users to the Upper Tampa Bay Trailhead on Lutz Lake Fern Road as the nearest access. The post's tone came through in the coverage:

"We know. It's not ideal." Once the work is finished, the county added, trail users will "gain a much safer, smoother way to cross one of the busiest roads in Pasco County. Think of it as the glow-up phase."

According to Hillsborough County's Upper Tampa Bay Trail page, the Lutz Lake Fern Trailhead is at 7020 Lutz Lake Fern Road, on the south side of the road between Gunn Highway and the Veterans Expressway. It has parking and restrooms. The county's listing doesn't mention drinking water, so bring a full bottle.

This trailhead is also where the Upper Tampa Bay Trail meets the Suncoast Trail. Starting here gives you two trails to choose from instead of one. You can head north on the Suncoast toward the SR 54 construction zone, or take the Upper Tampa Bay Trail south into Hillsborough. For a family ride where you'd rather skip the crossing work entirely, the Upper Tampa Bay Trail direction keeps you away from it.

This month, the detour uses the same road

The Gunn Highway closure is a separate county project, but it lands on the same map. Hillsborough County is replacing an aging box culvert near 18830 Gunn Highway, and Bay News 9 reported that the closed segment runs between Van Dyke Road and Lutz Lake Fern Road. The county's newsroom post says crews will remove a 5-by-10-foot box culvert and install two 53-by-83-inch elliptical reinforced concrete pipes, because the old culvert is nearing the end of its lifespan.

The road closure can last up to 28 days. The county expects it to begin on or after October 12, so the start date may still shift. Drivers are detoured to Lutz Lake Fern Road, Dale Mabry Highway and Van Dyke Road. The Veterans Expressway is an optional alternative, with regular tolls. The county's project page calls the closure tentative and lists overall completion as late 2026.

Put the two projects side by side. Once the closure begins, the substitute trailhead at 7020 Lutz Lake Fern Road will sit on a road that is also carrying rerouted Gunn Highway traffic, for as long as 28 days. If your usual drive to the trail runs along Gunn Highway, check the county's closure status the morning you go. The quickest way to the trailhead may not be the one your maps app learned over the summer.

The other big crossing on the corridor has its own schedule this week. FDOT's Pasco closure list shows lane restrictions at SR 52 and SR 589 from Monday, October 12 through Saturday, October 17, for ramp and lane work rather than a trail closure. FDOT updates that list as work moves, so look again before you head out.

The north-side option at Starkey Wilderness Park

Lutz Lake Fern Road is Pasco's official suggestion, but it isn't the only connected way onto the Suncoast. Jay B. Starkey Wilderness Park, at 10500 Wilderness Park Boulevard in New Port Richey, has a 7.3-mile paved multipurpose trail that connects to the Suncoast Trail. Pasco County lists the park as open dawn to dusk, with biking allowed.

For an out-and-back ride, Starkey's paved trail turns into a longer outing than a straight shot down the Suncoast. Pasco's page doesn't say whether the trailhead closest to the Suncoast connector has restrooms or water. The Southwest Florida Water Management District lists restrooms and picnic facilities for the wider Starkey Preserve, but doesn't say where they are relative to the trail. Plan as if you'll find no water at the connector. The dawn-to-dusk hours also mean this route ends earlier than a ride from Lutz Lake Fern, which has no hours listed in the county material we reviewed.

Starkey Ranch residents may wonder whether a neighborhood path leads straight onto the Suncoast. We couldn't confirm a direct connection from Starkey Ranch's internal trails to the Suncoast Trail, so the park and the Lutz Lake Fern Trailhead are the documented options.

What the closure buys

The SR 54 bridge is half of a larger plan. Tampa Bay Beacons reported that FDOT is building two pedestrian and bicycle overpasses on the trail in central Pasco, at an estimated combined cost of $18.9 million. The first one carries the trail over SR 52, on the west side of the Suncoast Parkway. FDOT expects that trail to stay open during construction too, with a street-level crossing, and estimates completion in early 2027.

Here is the schedule as it stands today:

1. June 22, 2026: SR 54 overpass construction begins.
2. June 23, 2026: Touchpoint Drive trailhead closes.
3. October 12–17, 2026: SR 52/SR 589 lane restrictions on FDOT's Pasco list.
4. On or after October 12, 2026: Gunn Highway culvert closure of up to 28 days, with the detour on Lutz Lake Fern Road.
5. Early 2027: SR 52 overpass estimated complete.
6. Summer 2027: SR 54 overpass estimated complete, and the Touchpoint trailhead expected to reopen.

The Beacons' June article said both bridges were tentatively set to open in the first half of 2027. FDOT's current SR 54 page says summer 2027, so plan on the later date for Touchpoint.

Local cyclists have been asking for these crossings for a while. In Bay News 9's April coverage, Geoff Lanier, owner of Trek Land O' Lakes and a member of the Pasco Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee, described the trail's appeal this way: "You can ride hundreds of miles on a trail, not having to worry about cars and traffic." He told the station that an overpass "alleviates a little bit more of the anxiety of having to cross a very busy highway, regardless of the controlled intersection with lights because mistakes happen."

The trade-off is roughly a year of starting your ride somewhere else. In return, the Suncoast Trail will cross both SR 52 and SR 54 without meeting traffic at street level. Until then, Lutz Lake Fern Road is the nearest way on, and once the Gunn Highway closure starts, that road will carry detour traffic too.

At Anne Bromberg, we keep track of the projects that change how Odessa gets around, from trailheads to detours. If you're wondering how a closer trail connection or a finished overpass might affect your home's value, ask us for a home valuation and we'll show you the numbers.