Turnpike Proposal Calls For Reconsideration, Public Meeting, Solutions

America's love affair with automobiles comes with consequences, including unwanted highways. The population boom on the Lake Wales Ridge, powered by scores of large residential developments, has proven that worse traffic is always just around the corner.

Courtesy Florida Turnpike

A swath of land through the Lake Wales area will be significantly impacted by any one of four different routes proposed for a turnpike segment lining SR 60 to the Orlando region.

Now a proposal from Florida's Turnpike to build an expressway down the Lake Wales Ridge, connecting the Orlando area with Lake Wales, is generating more controversy. That state agency has grown from a single toll road from Wildwood to Miami to spread tentacles of toll expressways through every metropolitan area of Florida. The Polk Parkway, a simple loop around Lakeland, was constructed two decades ago. Booming east Polk has now fallen under its gaze.

The years-long widening of US 27 from four to six lanes was expected by many to relieve the congestion on that corridor, but instead traffic has only grown worse, proving the axiom that you can't build your way out of traffic congestion.

Dozens of developments, many fronting directly upon the highway, have no alternative for even local travel. No grid of city streets connects the walled communities, forcing every trip to begin and end on the crowed thoroughfare.

Lake Wales now finds itself in the center of the storm, facing four proposed routes, each offering unwanted impacts upon the city and its plans for the future. Visions of a "Great Green Network" of environmental lands embracing the city, as voiced in the Lake Wales Envisioned plans, are meeting the reality of contradictory planning by a powerful and well-funded state agency. With the death of Florida's Comprehensive Growth Management, such conflicts became inevitable.

The recent construction of an intermodal freight center west of Lake Wales has sharply increased truck traffic on area highways. Many of the loads being brought from trains are headed for Orlando-area destinations, but the most direct route carries them to the intersection of US 27 and SR 60 in the middle of Lake Wales. The proposed road is undoubtedly intended to alleviate that impact.

The realistic fear is that the roadway will create havoc and permanently disrupt the area's cultural and historic resources, including National Historic Landmark of Bok Tower Gardens. Neighborhoods including Lake of the Hills and Timberlane would be impacted and changed forever.

The Lake Wales City Commission is standing in opposition to the currently-proposed options. Deputy Mayor Robin Gibson is proposing an elevated roadway above the existing US 27. Such constructs have served other areas where development pressures conflicted with environmental needs, limiting options. Construction costs are significantly higher, but other impacts, including urban sprawl and land acquisition, are considerably reduced.

Still, even if that option proves possible along a segment of US 27, problems remain: Where would the new roadway end? Where would that traffic be merged into the current road network? It's apparent that some diversion would be needed, and that it would likely have to include a direct connection to SR 60.

It is probably inevitable that some form of new road will be built. We would support the idea of utilizing the existing corridor rather than spreading the sprawl into the scenic countryside of the Lake Wales Ridge. Impacts to conservation lands, quiet residential neighborhoods, and the treasure of Bok Tower Gardens in unjustifiable.

If the only option falls to a surface road, we believe that the most direct route, clinging closest to the existing corridor, would be the best option. The four corridors offered by the Turnpike folks don't appear to offer that possibility, yet it remains on the table.

The sole public meeting on the proposed route was held more than a month ago in the Davenport area. While that may be convenient for transportation officials coming from Orlando or others part of the state, it is not for the majority of residents directly impacted by the proposed highway. We strongly urge the Turnpike folks to arrange a public meeting for the most highly-impacted part of their proposed corridor, which is the Lake Wales area.