Lazaro Aleman
news@greenepublishing.com
While health concerns over the coronavirus pandemic stalled much of business and other activities during the last two months – including the Suncoast Connector hearings – the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) soon expects to resume in-person meetings.
Not only that, but the agency expects to revisit the earlier postponed events, such as the open house and Suncoast Connector Task Force meeting that were scheduled in Monticello for Thursday, March 12 and Tuesday, March 24, respectively, before they were canceled at the last minute because of the coronavirus outbreak.
"We will resume face-to-face public meetings in the near future, once the social distancing requirements have been lifted based on COVID-19 data and direction from emergency orders," Will Watts, FDOT chief engineer, emailed the Monticello News – Greene Publishing's sister company – on Monday, May 4, in response to a news inquiry. "Our intent is to restore the schedule of any locations that have been postponed as a result of COVID 19. Other dates and locations are being reviewed as well."
The Suncoast Connector is one of three toll roads that the Florida Legislature approved in the 2019 spring session, ostensibly to relieve traffic congestion and bring economic development to rural parts of the state.
The 150-mile toll road is slated to extend from Citrus County to Jefferson County, with the Suncoast Connector Task Force assigned the responsibility of coming up with the guidelines for the selection of the road's pathway. In its pursuit of the assigned task, the group and the FDOT have been holding open houses and public meetings across the eight-county region that will be affected by the proposed road.
The Monticello News also asked Watts to ascertain the veracity of an earlier statement by other FDOT representatives that the Suncoast Connector would terminate at I-10.
On Tuesday, March 3, JoAnna Hand, a FDOT project manager, and Greg Garrett, a consultant project manager with Atkins North America, which is assisting the FDOT on the project, assured the Monticello City Council that the toll road would come only as far north as the interstate and would not impact the city of Monticello.
"The FDOT has identified I-10 as the northern terminus," Hand said. "It will not extend beyond I-10."
At the meeting, Hand vowed that an FDOT press release to that effect would soon be coming to the city. As of Monday, April 27, however, Monticello city officials had yet to receive the promised notification.
"All we've received was the attached," Anderson emailed, referring to an attached PDF that contained a memo dated March 6.
The memo extolled the FDOT's latest plan to enhance the existing corridors and environmental features within the proposed M-CORES, basically offering little more than promotional information.
M-CORES is the acronym for Multiple-use Corridors of Regional Economic Significance, the official name for the three roads.
Watts, in his email, confirmed Hand's statement, if in a roundabout way.
He noted an attached visual graphic that he said reflected the commitments that the FDOT had made to the Suncoast Connector Task Force members.
The graphic, Watts pointed out, illustrated two different colored areas – one pink and the other magenta, "representing the areas that the department is committed to not impacting (magenta) and areas that the department is committed to corridor enhancement only (pink)."
He added that corridors highlighted in red on the map represented co-location opportunities, meaning existing road that could be widened to accommodate the new road.
"The co-location options both in Madison and Jefferson counties stop at I-10," Watts emailed, referring to highways US 19 in Jefferson County and SR-221 in Madison County.
That FDOT's commitments will no doubt be a question that local citizens ask when the FDOT and task force hold their meeting. As will likely be the question of what happens to the northbound traffic on the toll road once it stops at 1-10?
For that matter, how does the southbound traffic that is headed for the toll road get to I-10, if not via SR-221?
Meanwhile, the deadline for the task's force submission of its complete report to the governor and lawmakers has reportedly been pushed back in recognition of the delays caused by the coronavirus outbreak. But not, seemingly, pushed back very far. Originally set for Oct. 1, indications are that the new deadline for report's submittal is now Nov. 15.