Because of road congestion, widening the road from four lanes to six moves up the priority list.
By MICHAEL KRUSE
Published August 5, 2005
BROOKSVILLE - A green sport utility vehicle pulls up to the red light at Winter Street and State Road 50 about 3 o'clock Thursday afternoon. Then a silver pickup. Then a green Suburban, a silver Oldsmobile, a little blue car and three big trucks pulling lawn equipment. The light turns green, and they all keep heading toward Spring Hill.
Some folks call this driving.
Others might call it traffic.
The Florida Department of Transportation calls it a failure.
According to the standards set in Tallahassee, there are too many cars on SR 50, all the way from where it meets U.S. 19 at Weeki Wachee to Wiscon Road heading toward Brooksville.
On Thursday morning, at a meeting of the county's Metropolitan Planning Organization, state Rep. David Russell, who lives in Brooksville and heads the House Transportation Committee, dropped in to talk about what the Transportation Department considers congestion, and what it might be able to do about it on this stretch of Hernando County highway - and how much sooner than previously planned.
Gov. Jeb Bush signed the Growth Management Reform Act in September, and it provides for $1.5-billion next year for transportation, water and schools, and $750-million every year after that.
Widening SR 50 from four lanes to six is high on the priority list of projects that could get some of that cash.
In other words: "We'd like to advance the State Road 50 project," Tampa Transportation Department spokeswoman Kris Carson said.
An announcement is set to come in September.
"State Road 50 is the poster child for these type of funds," Russell said Wednesday afternoon. "It fits the criteria 100 percent."
All those cars in the Wal-Mart Supercenter parking lot have to get in and out somehow.
"There's failure and there's failure," said Larry Jennings, the county's director of growth and development. "(SR) 50 is at the high end of failing."
The "good" end.
So far.
"But do you just keep letting everything go, or are you proactive?" Jennings asked.
SR 50 is part of something the Transportation Department terms the SIS - strategic intermodal system - which basically includes roads around the state that are important and need to work correctly.
Roads in Florida are like students, or schools, or restaurants that don't mop their floors: They get grades. The grades start at A and go all the way to F.
The department essentially divides SR 50 into two parts: east of Mariner Boulevard and west of Mariner Boulevard.
But it doesn't matter. They're both F's.
According to 2004 stats, which are the latest available, 37,168 cars travel on SR 50 from U.S. 19 to Mariner on an average day. That includes 3,530 at peak hours, the four busiest consecutive 15-minute periods of any given 24-hour period. The department says that is 230 cars more than it should be.
The stretch from Mariner to Wiscon Road, meanwhile, is even busier: 43,500 for a daily average, 4,130 during peak hours.
Hence the push for faster funding.
Nothing is for sure. But a go-ahead in the fall at least would set into motion the bureaucratic gears necessary to have guys in hard hats starting to do their thing on the sides of SR 50 at some point in the next five years.
There will be additional funding, Russell said Wednesday. And it almost certainly will come more quickly than it would have come without the ante upped by the new growth management bill. County officials had been looking at being able to start on the portion east of Mariner six to seven years out and west of Mariner a decade from now.
As for cost?
County transportation planning coordinator Dennis Dix said Wednesday that county estimates have the project east of Mariner running $11-million and west of Mariner up to $30-million. But those numbers are from this past fall. With the rising cost of land, materials and labor, he said, that $11-million could turn into more like $20-million or $25-million.
And the $30-million?
"Well," Dix said, "it's going to be more expensive yet."
"Right now," Russell said, "I think we have an excellent chance of having it approved."
"We know we're going to get it funded," Jennings said. "It's just a matter of when."
Now it's just after 5 p.m out at the Winter Street intersection.
The light turns red. A white pickup comes to a stop. Then a white Honda. Then a silver minivan, two silver sedans of some sort, another white pickup, a blue pickup, a big cream-colored Cadillac Escalade, a teal van, a maroon van, another white pickup . . .
