Andrea Garcia, a private consultant for the Florida Department of Transportation responds to a question at the Bronson Town Council meeting.

By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter

                A team of private consultants representing the Florida Department of Transportation told Bronson Town Council members Monday not to expect much solid information about the planned Suncoast Connector toll road until next year.

            The message was nothing new.

            The group made an appearance at the Chiefland City Commission meeting a week earlier with the same message. DOT representatives and their consultants introduced themselves to the Levy County Commission a week before their Chiefland visit with a similar approach.

            They don’t know where the Suncoast Connector will be constructed, but stay tuned.

            The Suncoast Connector would be a four lane toll road extending from Suncoast Parkway in Citrus County to Jefferson County in north Florida. That’s about all they know at this point.

            It’s not much.

            Andrea Garcia, senior project manager for Atkins, Kevin M. Connor, senior environmental manager for HW Lochner and Lee Beasley, senior transportation planner for Lochner plan to attend every Bronson council meeting through the end of 2020 to give the board information about the toll road.

            But they couldn’t answer the one question on everyone’s mind. Where does the state plan to build the Suncoast Connector? Will it pass through Levy County, and if it does, where? How would it impact Bronson? Or would it impact Bronson?

            Garcia said the Florida Legislature approved three new toll road corridors in its 2019 spring session. The Suncoast Connector, which appears likely to pass through Levy County, the North Florida Turnpike Connector, which also appears likely to extend through Levy County and the Southwest-Central Connector in Polk and Collier counties were given state approval.

            She said her group is focused on the Suncoast Connector. When asked if the group would consider adding someone that could answer questions about the North Florida Turnpike Connector, since the future toll road also will pass through Levy County, she said that might be possible.

            The Florida Legislature gave the future toll roads a complicated label. They are known as Multi-Use Corridors of Regional Economic Significance or M-CORES. Garcia wasn’t sure what the letters in M-CORES stood for. She leaned back and asked Connor for the full name.

            Garcia said the state isn’t just planning to build a toll road. The state is planning to potentially add broadband internet and water and sewer lines to the wide roadway corridors planned as part of the toll road projects. The idea is to significantly improve the economies of rural Floridians.

            Councilman Berlon Weeks asked if the broadband facilities along the new toll road right of ways would be privately owned by companies like Verizon or AT&T?

            Garcia said she didn’t know the answer to the question.

            “Most of the details have yet to be worked out, but those questions you need to keep asking,” she said.

            Linda Cooper, founder of Spotlight, questioned whether broadband facilities located along super highways like the Suncoast Connector could ever serve inland cities like Williston. She said the broadband would probably benefit the immediate area near the highway.

            “Those are the kinds of things we’re wresting with,” Garcia said.

            Cooper said she wanted better answers.

            “I would like to get more straightforward, honest answers,” Cooper said.

            Garcia’s group has the task of communicating information about a project that was created in the spring of 2019 and exists only on paper at this point.

            The Suncoast Connector and Northern Turnpike Connector could very well impact towns, cities and farms in Levy County when bulldozers arrive to begin construction in a couple of years.

            Garcia encouraged everyone in attendance to look at the M-CORES website for additional information about the Suncoast Connector, but it was pointed out that many people in Levy County have no internet access.

            They can’t access the M-CORES website.

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2. Councilman Berlon Weeks asked who would own the broadband facilities along the new state toll road – private companies?

Town of Bronson Regular Meeting December 16, 2019