Guest Column
By: Lesley Blackner
St. Petersburg Times, Citrus Edition
Published: ?

A question for residents of Pasco and Hernando: how's the drive on US 19 and 41 these days? How does it compare with a year ago? The drive should be a lot better. After all, the Turnpike District committed nearly a billion dollars to fix the gridlock on those thoroughfares through the construction of Suncoast Parkway 1. That was the "official" reason for building the tollroad.

Yes, the fix is on-but it isn't going to alleviate traffic. Now the Turnpike District claims that the purpose of the road is to link commuters to Tampa. I guess the "official" reason for the tollroad was a "technicality."

A year after the opening of Suncoast Parkway 1, the traffic on US 19 and 41 is just as bad as ever, but you can practically roller-skate on the tollroad. The tollroad isn't generating sufficient toll revenue to meet the requirement of state law, but I guess that's just another "legal technicality."

Developers are understandably ecstatic about the tollroad-the cheap land the road opened up, the quick commute to Tampa created by the road. The tidal wave of developments spawned by the road pay eager homage with their names: Suncoast Crossings, Suncoast Point, and Suncoast Meadows. An incredible 10,000 homes are planned for the stretch of State Road 54 between the tollroad and U.S. 41 alone! Suncoast Parkway 1 is a textbook case for the "build it and they shall come" syndrome.

And yet, the Turnpike District continues its roadspeak that Suncoast Parkway 2 proposed for Citrus County "will not be a conduit to sprawl." Why is the Turnpike District in denial over the truth behind its billion-dollar boondoggle? Somebody smart once said that the definition of lunacy is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. I suggest intensive truth therapy for the Turnpike District.

And what about the traffic on US 19 and 41? Well, thanks to the Suncoast Parkway, you can expect it to get a lot worse. The thousands of folks who move into Pasco and Hernando because of the tollroad will be driving on all the local roads, making the traffic everywhere much, much worse.

The con game called the Suncoast Parkway 1 is looking a lot like Enronomics. The Turnpike District cooked the books to justify a giant highway in the middle of nowhere that couldn't be developed without access. And even though state law requires that the tollroad pay for itself promptly, the Turnpike knew it couldn't, but doesn't care. And the people of Pasco and Hernando are left holding the bag with a road that is not only expensive to drive on but has unleashed an onslaught of development that won't pay its way. (Imagine the school crowding when the Suncoast building frenzy really kicks into overdrive. And where are we going to get the water for all the newcomers? Are these issues mere "technicalities"?) The people of Pasco and Hernando can expect all their local taxes to go up and the quality of their lives to go down. And the traffic everywhere will be worse. Who in their right mind could justify spending nearly a billion dollars on such an outcome? And who could call that progress?