In his bid for U.S. Senate, Gov. Rick Scott has been touting his record on the environment and his frugal management of taxpayer money. But one of his own agencies has been trampling on that campaign message.
If Scott is sincere about being a good steward of the environment, as well as public dollars, he’ll rein in the Florida Department of Transportation. The agency’s actions on two highway projects make the case.
For a couple of years, FDOT was working together with the Central Florida Expressway Authority on an extension of State Road 408 through the Bithlo area of east Orange County to handle additional traffic between Orlando and Interstate 95. The authority intended to utilize the State Road 50 right of way, a plan that would minimize the extension’s environmental impact.
In 2016, however, FDOT told the authority it couldn’t use the S.R. 50 right of way, compelling the local agency to plan an alternate route. At a cost of $3.2 million, the authority came up with a $678 million route that would mostly run south of S.R. 50. It would require a new bridge over the environmentally sensitive Econlockhatchee River, and pave over conservation lands along its route.
FDOT then launched a study of its own on building a toll road in the S.R. 50 right of way — a separate planning process that could cost millions more dollars. That has left the authority in a holding pattern, waiting to see what FDOT proposes to do and whether it would meet the objectives for the S.R. 408 extension. MetroPlan Orlando Director Harry Barley told the Sentinel in April that he’s been trying to get the two agencies to work together. “We don’t need two projects,” he said.
Meanwhile, in Marion and Alachua counties, FDOT also has overriden local input on highway planning by spurning the recommendations of a task force with elected officials and citizens from the area that Scott appointed to consider ways to alleviate congestion on Interstate 75. The 1-75 Relief Task Force called for improvements to the highway, including the addition of express lanes and truck lanes, before construction of any new highways was considered.
But in April, Florida’s Turnpike Enterprise, a unit within FDOT, proposed five possible routes for a new road, dubbed the “Coastal Connector,” from the Suncoast Parkway in Citrus County through horse country in Marion County to Interstate 75 somewhere between Ocala and Gainesville. Those routes had been considered and rejected by the task force.
The extra burden facing taxpayers from building a new highway, rather than improving an existing one, is clear. There’s also a mismatch in environmental impact between the two options.
In a letter last month to Scott, Alachua County Commission Chairman Lee Pinkoson wrote that the proposed routes would “cross or encroach upon several regionally significant environmental areas.” He called on FDOT to pull the plug on the Coastal Connector and consider an expansion in I-75’s capacity like the one underway on Interstate 4 in Orlando.
This month, the Marion County Commission passed a resolution that also endorsed the task force’s recommendations to improve I-75 rather than build a new highway. It declared its opposition to all five possible Coastal Connector routes “to protect our rural lands, our vital equine industry, our precious conservation land tracts, the quality of life of our citizens and the overall objectives of our adopted Comprehensive Plan.” And this week, the Citrus County Commission also passed a resolution opposing all of the Coastal Connector routes to protect the county’s “significant natural assets.”
To convince Florida voters of his commitment to the environment, as well as to fiscal responsibility, Scott needs to make sure FDOT is on the same page.
