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The Associated Press
August 9, 2011 at 1:44 p.m.
TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Rick Scott, who killed high speed rail in Florida earlier this year, is pushing ahead with a major transportation plan that calls for speeding up road projects and relying more on new tolls to help pay for them.
The plan, unveiled by the state's transportation chief at a road-builders conference on Friday, also calls for reviving work on controversial new road projects such as the Heartland Parkway in Florida, as well as a parkway stretching across the state from Manatee County. The Scott administration wants to consolidate the groups responsible for approving new roads and look at ways to eliminate "regulatory burdens" to accelerate construction.
Scott touts the proposal as a way to spur job creation in the state.
"The transportation industry will be leading the charge in making sure we have the state-of-the-art infrastructure that is interconnected and efficient," Scott said in a statement.
Part of the plan calls for speeding up work on nearly $1 billion worth of road projects, including an expressway in Hillsborough County. The plan also calls for moving ahead with $1.8 billion worth of Florida Turnpike projects, including breaking ground on the Wekiva Parkway in Central Florida by October 2012.
But a key new element of the plan — dubbed the Florida Transportation Vision for the 21st Century — also calls for relying more on tolls to help pay for new road projects.
Department of Transportation Secretary Ananth Prasad told road builders in Marco Island that paying for roads from gas taxes is no longer "sustainable" and that Florida will instead rely on tolls to pay to widen interstate highways, build expressways and replace bridges.
Gas taxes have been an unsteady source of revenue in recent years due to either high gas prices or the recession.
The state will also look at working with private companies to help pay — and then collect tolls — for lanes built along existing roads such as Interstate 4 in Orlando, Interstate 75 in Broward County and the Palmetto Expressway in Miami-Dade County.
While Florida already has a series of toll roads and recently begun adding toll lanes on some highways, this would mark a dramatic change in how the state pays for roads. It also could create a political firestorm from motorists and voters.
Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville and the chairman of the Senate panel that oversees the state's road budget, said he is "open-minded" about tolling but he warned that he would not support any proposal to start charging tolls on existing highways.
"I would generally favor tolling if additional roads that were paid for by tolls solved real transportation problems," Gaetz said.
Another part of the transportation plan calls for reviving a controversial plan known as the "future corridors action plan" that has been widely criticized in the past by environmental groups
DOT wants to move ahead and study new roads such as the North-South Heartland Parkway, which would stretch from Collier County to Polk County through the interior of the state. Another future corridor project is the East-West Heartland Parkway that would run from Manatee County to St. Lucie County. DOT also wants to look at building new roads to link Tampa to Jacksonville and Panama City to Alabama.
The plan outlined by Prasad on Friday dealt primarily on roads — although he touched briefly on ports and aviation as well as suggesting the state may want to partner with a private company to take over Tri-Rail service in South Florida.
Prasad also in his plan said that DOT wants to look at consolidating metropolitan planning organizations and removing "regulatory burdens" that discourage projects. Prasad did not elaborate on whether he is talking about some of the environmental permits and studies that DOT must undertake in order to build a new road.
He also said that DOT wants to privatize and outsource as much as possible in the coming years.
"If it's in the Yellow Pages, we shouldn't be doing it," Prasad said according to his prepared remarks.
Original article in Ocala Sentinel.
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