Outer Beltway Plan Up In Smoke!

[thelakelander]

Plan to build entire Outer Beltway abandoned; state will try to do it in pieces

By Larry Hannan

It was only 11 months ago that then-Gov. Charlie Crist announced that plans to build the First Coast Outer Beltway were being expedited so construction could begin as soon as possible.

That plan, like Crist’s immediate political career, is history.

On Friday, the Florida Department of Transportation conceded it was abandoning plans to have a private partner build the entire 46.5-mile toll road from Interstate 10 in Duval County to Interstate 95 in St. Johns County.

The state now wants someone to build only a 15-mile portion of the road and will worry about getting the rest built later.

No private companies were willing to spend the estimated $1.8 billion it would have cost to build the entire road.

full article: http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2011-02-04/story/plan-build-entire-outer-beltway-abandoned-state-will-try-do-it-pieces

[thelakelander]

I agree with the first part of this reply to the TU article:

"There you go. Once again the private sector shows far more common sense than the government saps. This road is needless. This toll is needless and these commissioners are needless. Thank God this monstrosity is being scuttled."

A lot a potential blood sucking future sprawl just went down in flames with the inability to raise $2 billion to get this asphalt monster built.

[jcjohnpaint]

yeah who s pet project is this?  This highway makes no sense and for some reason they just won't give up on it. 

[JeffreyS]

It makes sense for Clay County which would get much better access to I-10 and I-95. No doubt it is good for the region for this plan to be stopped.
I currently live in Oakleaf (my own terrible decision)  and take Brannonfeild every day to the edge of Downtown to work.  If I can ever sell my home and move to Riverside I won't care about the connector. For now however I would love fast access to 95 south of Jax.

[tufsu1]

from what I hear, they think they'll be able to get the northern link (Blanding to I-10) and the southern link (US 17 to I-95) built...it is the middle part that will be really hard to attract private funding.

[Timkin]

This additional stretch of road is not needed at present.  Bottom Line.

[ChriswUfGator]

from what I hear, they think they'll be able to get the northern link (Blanding to I-10) and the southern link (US 17 to I-95) built...it is the middle part that will be really hard to attract private funding.

If they're actually dumb enough to build 15 miles of unnecessary highway without any way to complete the rest of it, then they are seriously stupid. I am glad to see this one bite the dust.

[dougskiles]

This additional stretch of road is not needed at present.  Bottom Line.

None of it should ever be built.  It will serve no other purpose than to create more sprawl.  The only people pushing for it are the landowners and developers in the area (for obvious reasons) and the Clay County officials who want to increase their tax base.

[AbelH]

Interesting timing. There's a piece in today's St. Pete Times on the Suncoast Parkway:

the Veterans Expressway in northern Hillsborough to U.S. 98 near the Citrus-Hernando line, suddenly made Pasco and Hernando counties seem less like the hinterlands.

By the parkway's five-year anniversary, potential became reality as developers opened the throttle. "Coming soon" signs sprouted from the sand to announce the next subdivision, office park or retail center.

But the second five years have not been as kind, with slackening revenue and dreams of development deferred.

The revved-up real estate market finally blew in 2007. Gas prices climbed above $4 a gallon in 2008, and the unemployment rates in Hernando and Pasco counties have roughly tripled, cutting the number of commuters and commercial traffic.

In 2008, after several years of pedal-to-the-metal increases, the parkway's toll revenue slipped for the first time.

In early 2009, Florida's Turnpike Enterprise announced that it was indefinitely shelving plans to build the second phase of the parkway through Citrus County.

The turnpike enterprise predicted in 2006 that the parkway would earn about $25.7 million in toll revenue in 2010. The actual figure: $20.6 million.

Full story: http://www.tampabay.com/news/transportation/roads/since-2001-suncoast-parkway-hasnt-seen-the-smoothest-ride/1149624

[thelakelander]

Does anyone know how much it cost to construct the Tampa highway and what it's annual O&M numbers are? I'm wondering how many decades or centuries will it take to break even. At this point, I assume it never will.  Also, if a private entity coverts 15 miles of existing road into a tollroad, will they pay the public back for cost of what's there today (ex. ROW, & road infrastructure)?

[Ocklawaha]

Oh these were golden, today on the Times-Union I found these quotes.

Thank god this was cancelled...
...The money should now be put towards getting a high speed rail built...

This guy obviously doesn't know the difference between a Boeing 777, and a pogo stick. Now lets see, we could pave a runway at the JRTC as long as those jets got low enough to roll under the I-95 bridge. "Now boarding at gate 29, non stop jet service to Old Middleburg Road.

Folks, “High Speed Rail” is yet another absurd Obama/Biden idea. The freight railroads are in business to MAKE MONEY. Then you have some political hack (Like Obama) force the freight railroads to share THEIR track with a “high speed rail” line. You cannot achieve true high speed rail without specially designed track and without highway/grade crossings present. I ask the good citizens of Orange Park and Ortega; do you want a 100 MPH commuter train rumbling through your neighborhood and over your street crossings?

This one is shear genius. I can see it now, a 185 mph train leaving downtown and heading for "Stockton," "Edgewood," "San Juan," "Yukon," and "Orange Park."  By the time you stopped the damn thing for that first station, you'd probably be in Green Cove Springs! Wow, flying commuter trains.

Yeah, we don't need no stinkin' roads... So we can be just like Atlanta in a few years. They haven't built a new road there in 3 decades. They just keep buying orange barrels for the roads they have. As far as high speed rail... Dumb union job creating nothing. Who is going to drive to the railstation to take a train?

Here is the a-typical Jacksonville Joe Lunchbucket, he probably makes $8.50 an hour, but he knows unions are all bad. He also appears to have a vision problem, because he has never seen the crowds going to the MARTA stations in Atlanta! DUH?

Way back when the Buckman Bridge was built, many people said it was a waste of money and wasn't needed. Are people still saying that? By keeping "ahead of the times" and building infrastructure for the future, we do bring further economic development...
...True, this road isn't needed now, but ten years from now, when it probably will be needed. By only focusing on the present, we are throwing away our future.

A futurist, a man or woman of great vision, this one sees a day when we'll just pave all of Florida and be done with it. A dream to "see a place where people get on and off the freeway. On and off. Off and on. All day, all night. Soon, where Toontown once stood will be a string of gas stations, inexpensive motels, restaurants that serve rapidly-prepared food, tire salons, automobile dealerships, and wonderful, wonderful billboards reaching as far as the eye can see. My God, it'll be beautiful." *

I wonder if it ever occured to these people that it would be allot more sensible to build a second story overhead expressway over Blanding to the south end of it from 295 to ease the commuters ride out of town?

I first saw overhead expressways in a couple of Texas cities a few years ago and they were great. Construction would likely be a nightmare but it seems like a fine long-term solution to the Blanding horror.

This vision is even scarier, Blanding is 235' feet wide and on top of that we'll have 235' feet of FREEway, and when that is full we'll either add another deck, or better yet, just mow down a few hundred businesses and make it wider, then repeat that until Duval is no more... Look at a lesson from DALLAS:

OCKLAWAHA

[AbelH]

Does anyone know how much it cost to construct the Tampa highway and what it's annual O&M numbers are? I'm wondering how many decades or centuries will it take to break even. At this point, I assume it never will. 

A measly $820 million. http://www.dot.state.fl.us/publicinformationoffice/moredot/pdf%20files/TurnPHernandoCitrusSuncoastParkway2.pdf

[Ocklawaha]

The Suncoast Parkway is costing $507m or $1.9m/lane-km ($3.1m/lane-mi). It is expected to do 9k tolls/day in its first full year of operation growing to 114k in 2010.
SOURCE: http://www.tollroadsnews.com/node/2852

Also beware the corridor D option in the Florida Turnpike Studies, that would bend this sucker right over to DUVAL.

OCKLAWAHA

[TheProfessor]

I'm glad they are not building the outer beltway!

[tufsu1]

from what I hear, they think they'll be able to get the northern link (Blanding to I-10) and the southern link (US 17 to I-95) built...it is the middle part that will be really hard to attract private funding.

If they're actually dumb enough to build 15 miles of unnecessary highway without any way to complete the rest of it, then they are seriously stupid. I am glad to see this one bite the dust.

well smart guy, originally it was only planned to be a 15 mile roadway conneting Blanding to I-10...then sometime in the late 1990s, the idea of connecting it all the way around to I-95 sprung up.

fact is, the traffic forecasts (i.e., demand) from Blanding north can be shown....it is from Blanding south traffic forecasts drop significantly.