THE BATTLES ABOUT TRUCK TRAFFIC AND SAFETY: NOBODY WANTS THEM IN THEIR TOWN CENTERS DUE TO THE ACCIDENTS THEY CAUSE, BUT NOT ENOUGH MONEY TO REDIRECT TRAFFIC
Groveland, Florida officials disappointed FDOT didn't make SR
50 project a priority
FDOT
does not include SR 50 realignment project in five-year plan
A
semi turns onto State Road 19 from State Road 50 through Groveland causing
traffic to stop short of the light.
Posted: Thursday, January 1, 2015
6:00 am
City of Groveland officials were
discouraged recently to learn the Florida Department of Transportation’s
tentative five-year work plan does not include the State Road 50 realignment
project.
Officials hoped the project would
help detour heavy truck traffic from the downtown area and spur economic
development.
As a result, they have launched a
letter-writing campaign in hopes residents will convince the FDOT to change its
mind.
Meanwhile, Lake-Sumter Metropolitan
Planning Organization’s Executive Director T.J. Fish remains hopeful the
project, which has already been funded in its design phase, will be completed.
Right of way and construction costs still remain an issue.
“The Lake-Sumter MPO has been
extremely successful in working with the FDOT to get things programmed,” he
said.
The problem is funding, he said,
citing a statute that requires the FDOT to distribute funds to counties based on
population.
“Lake County is very well allocated
and receiving a little bit more,” he said.
A portion of that funding has been
allocated to the Wekiva Parkway Project, a planned 25-mile state toll road
beginning at State Road 429 and ending near Mount Dora. It is designed to
complete the beltway around northwest central Florida and reduce congestion on
U.S. Highway 441, SR. 46 and other area roads.
The large project has resulted in
other road projects being put on hold, Fish said.
Similar issues are occurring in
Seminole and Orange counties, where the Wekiva Parkway is also listed as a
project.
Jen Horton, public information
specialist for the FDOT, said because of a lack of funding “no right of way was
programmed this (annual) cycle.”
If delayed, the project would affect
the city’s Downtown Master Plan focused on “creating a pedestrian friendly
setting; encouraging intense commercial development and redevelopment; and
providing additional residential options so people may live and work downtown,”
according to the FDOT.
SR 50 and SR 19/SR 33, which runs
north-south through downtown Groveland, both have heavy truck traffic. That is
a challenge to creating a pedestrian friendly environment, state officials say.
“We are experiencing 600 to 700
truck trips per day right through our downtown area,” Groveland Mayor Tim
Loucks said. “It has caused a substantial number of accidents in the downtown
area”.
City Manager Redmond Jones wrote in
a letter to FDOT that the city “had already experienced an incident of a pedestrian
killed by downtown traffic.”
Groveland Deputy Police Chief John
Flinn agrees that the area is prone to accidents.
“A lot of our population is
increasing exponentially, including transient traffic,” he said.
In 2014, there were 113 accidents in
the area, which represents half the crashes in the city, according to Flinn.
Flinn said police were working
another semi-truck and car accident downtown Tuesday.
The project would realign SR 50 to
the north of downtown. Specifically, the project’s limits are from County Road
565 (Villa City Road) to Brown Street, a distance of approximately 1.6 miles.
The changes are also needed to help
enhance economic development, Loucks said.
“The state would turn Broad and
Orange Streets over to the city of Groveland to become city streets,” he said.
“We could go ahead and have plans to have angled parking on two one-way pair of
streets and a roundabout at the entry way of Groveland.”
Because of traffic congestion,
Loucks said parking downtown is impeded.
“The traffic congestion during
certain times of the day prevents people from shopping or doing anything in the
downtown area,” he said.
Jones wrote in his letter to the
FDOT he would “sternly oppose any plan that doesn’t include this critical
project.”
Even so, several downtown business
owners welcomed the delay. They worry the project will result in a loss of
business in the downtown area.
“There is no doubt there are some
safety issues and there needs to be a different option in the long run,” said
Tod Howard, owner of Howard Chiropractic & Massage in downtown Groveland.
“To pretend we need a six-lane highway in the middle of Groveland is absurd. It
will absolutely paralyze downtown Groveland. There is no doubt in my mind it
will turn downtown Groveland into a ghost town.”
Howard said he would have preferred
the city do a large roundabout at SR 19 and SR 50 as opposed to the
realignment.
“It is going to destroy the property
values,” he said. “Unfortunately, the city leaders have a myopic view and I am
not sure they are seeing the bigger picture.”
Dr. Ronald Stone, owner of
Veterinary Trauma Center Animal Hospital in downtown Groveland, said the
project would destroy downtown Groveland.
“This has happened in other towns as
well,” he said. “Once they put in SR 50 and bypassed it, it was history. No one
goes to historic downtown Clermont.”