Nature of Things: Still no public mandate for toll road from Polk to Collier counties
By Tom Palmer | Special to The Ledger
Now that the task force meetings involving a proposal to build a toll road between Polk County and the Naples area have concluded, it’s time to take stock.
After 14 months of discussion, there’s still no mandate emerging for major new road projects. Instead, there might be only some improvements of the local transportation networks in the study area.
Additionally, local government officials wanted to make sure state road projects they’ve been trying to get into the state’s work plan aren’t sacrificed to make any legislative-mandated projects happen.
There was also some feeling that if traffic congestion in urban areas is the problem, the state should address that without bringing the problem to rural areas by building new roads where they aren’t needed.