By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter
Chiefland area residents may begin to see folks they don’t recognize working along U.S. 19 in the near future as part of the ongoing Project Development and Engineering study being conducted by the Florida Department of Transportation.
Ryan Asmus, project engineer for the PD&E study paid a visit to the Chiefland City Commission Monday to give the board an overview of what residents might see when project staff are working in the area of U.S. 19 as they gather information for the highway study.
“We’re continuing to gather and analyze data. We want you to be aware you may see project staff in the area of the study in the near future,” Asmus said. “We’re going to have to start going out and doing field investigations.”
Project staff members want to collect a variety of information related to the highway study such as cultural resources, historic buildings, natural resources, wetlands, wildlife, noise, contaminated sites, bridges, and other structures, he said.
“In the coming weeks and months, you may see those folks out doing roadway surveys, measuring noise with microphones, taking pictures, making notes, taking samples of dirt, and sifting and analyzing samples of dirt,” Asmus said.
He said DOT will make contact with private landowners if there is a need to enter private property as part of the study.
“We just wanted to share that we will have project staff in the area in the near future,” he said.
DOT has indicated in previous meetings and in news releases that the study is aimed at smoothing traffic flow on U.S. 19. The highway, they say, will remain a free highway. It won’t be turned into a toll road.
However, questions remain as to what is meant by smoothing traffic flow and why the improvements are needed. It is known that a previous study was completed more than a decade ago to establish a highway connection between the Suncoast Parkway toll road in Citrus County and U.S. 19 at Red Level south of Inglis.
In recent months, the Florida Legislature approved $27.4 million to fund a study of corridor development areas along U.S. 19 that appear to be part of the PD&E study.
There has been talk of co-locating a toll road alongside U.S. 19 to carry turnpike traffic, but DOT says it’s too early to discuss what might or might not happen in the future.
Asmus has told Spotlight informally that many of the questions residents have about whether bypasses might be built around Inglis and Chiefland won’t be answered until early next year in a DOT public hearing.
Among the questions Chiefland residents are asking is whether U.S. 19, as a free highway, would remain connected to the city on the north and south ends of town if a bypass route were constructed to carry higher speed traffic around the city, and would there would be off-ramps giving traffic an opportunity to enter the city for food, gas, and lodging. Asmus has indicated they don’t know the answers to those questions at this time. It’s too early in the study.
Inglis residents are also concerned and have many of the same questions about what the improvements to U.S. 19 could mean for their city.
Spotlight has discovered that DOT officials prefer not discussing Florida Turnpike Enterprise projects, and likewise, the turnpike enterprise folks don’t like discussing DOT projects even though they are part of the same agency. But it seems logical, from the media’s standpoint, for both agencies to talk freely with each other and with the media about projects that would connect a toll road to a free highway like U.S. 19.
The media is aware that the Suncoast Parkway 2 project, which is funded and would serve as a connector toll road between Suncoast Parkway 1 in Citrus County and U.S. 19 at Red Level, would dump toll road traffic onto U.S. 19 and could raise traffic levels in areas like Inglis and Chiefland. When will Suncoast Parkway 2 be constructed? How much toll traffic would be channeled to U.S. 19? More unanswered questions.
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City of Chiefland Regular Meeting July 25, 2022; Posted July 26, 2022
