Robert F. Roscow, Inverness & Hamden CT (17-Jan-2004)

When I was a child in the 50's my grandmother lived in St. Pete. To visit her we would take US 41 from Inverness to Brooksville, then SR 50 to Weeki Wachee and US 19 and then go down to St. Pete. We also traveled this same route throughout my childhood, long after my grandmother had gone, to spend weeks during the summer at Indian Rocks Beach, the local summer get-away for people from Inverness. To shop medium level, one took SR 200 to Ocala and the new Belk's or stores on Silver Springs Blvd. and then eat roast beef at Morrison's Cafeteria. Big time shopping was US 41 to Tampa. Orlando was a place for oranges. My memories of US 19 in Citrus Co. were mainly the short stretches of it to the Green Tavern or Hunter Springs which for us is what "Crystal River" meant and the little jog from CR 490 to get to Yulee Drive and McRae's in Homosassa and wonder why the road was this way. For trips up north to see relatives we sometimes took US 19. US 19 north of Crystal River was the boonies with nothing but pine trees and lowlands and of course Gulf Hammock where a lot of locals hunted deer.

In the 60's US 19 slowly started growing in the Crystal River area and somewhat in Homosassa after Norris Grain bought and developed a lot of land in Homosassa. By the 80's US 19 between Homosassa and Crystal River had become more of a Main Street for a city that didn't exist. Even with the new Comprehensive Plan approved in the late 80's, this classic strip development was preserved and unfortunately also accepted as good planning for other main highways in the county like US 41 and SR 44. That strip development aspect of the Comp Plan still remains.

By far the biggest change during this period was the construction of I-75 that rendered totally obsolete US 19 and US 41 as interstate US highways. FDOT traffic counts clearly show that US 19 from St. Pete to Georgia is primarily used by for local traffic and there isn't a new motel from Crystal River to Georgia. Although it is now been given the awe-inspiring appellation of being part of Florida's Intrastate Highway System (FIHS), its primary role is for local traffic and freight from I-75 feeders. While I can understand FDOT's purpose in not abandoning the road and trying to upgrade its local carrying capacity and providing good freight access to the towns located on it, it will never be an interstate highway substitute. I-75 might be bad but it is programmed for improvements and it is the logical way to travel long distances within the state or out of state. That was the "Big Idea" behind the Interstate Highway System. Traffic stats don't lie: I-75 takes the bulk of freight running through central and west Fla., nothing else even comes close. Wal-Mart is a good indicator of its significance; that's where they locate their warehouses or on other interstates feeding into it. The I-75 corridor has developed over the last 30 some odd years and is here to stay. We should continue to focus on keeping it that way, not starting new major urban corridors.

The basic problem today with US 19 in Citrus is one of fundamental planning that continues to promote it for strip development and offers no alternative. When the Comp Plan was developed it designated the central area of the county as the Planned Service Area (PSA) and effectively curbed future development on the coast and inland lake/river areas for environmental reasons. The 2000 Census shows that this policy has worked in that the center of population for the county is now just east of Lecanto a few miles. Over half of the county's population is already within an 8-mile radius of the intersection of SR 44 and CR 491. Given the large developments already platted in that area and north of the PSA (Citrus Springs), that trend should continue.

What's blatantly missing from this plan is a central business area or town center for the PSA. Where is downtown from Citrus Springs, Pine Ridge, Citrus Hills, etc.? There is no planning philosophy that I know of that puts multiple service/downtown areas around the periphery of an urban area. But that's exactly what Citrus Co. has done or expected of the towns of Inverness, Dunnellon, Homosassa, and Crystal River. Supposedly they are to function as town centers for this growing population. US 19, as well as other major and minor county arterials, has accordingly come under increased pressure for more strip development to feed the PSA.

To top things off the comp plan proposes "nodes" where quasi-town centers can develop. Another bad idea that further worsens the problem. De facto, whether they are incorporated or not, the county is turning out a bunch of strip/sprawl villages dictated by developers' seeking profits not good planning instead of a focused center for non-residential uses supporting its major population center. So while the BOCC has taken a step in the right direction of supporting FDOT's efforts to corral strip development on US 19 by limiting access, the root problem still goes unanswered. The SC2 just further muddies the waters as it doesn't even acknowledge the problem and now the county is trying to "help make it fit." That's called NO PLANNING or design by force. Responsible planning starts with needs not toll roads and then figuring out what to do with them after the fact. We've got enough problems already with sprawl and its climbing costs.

Since the rider ship on SC2 after 2 years is about on par with a Safeway type supermarket in terms of traffic generation, the BOCC's fears of "all the traffic from the SC1 dumping into the county" are totally unfounded. Likewise, the problems today and tomorrow with US 19 are internal to the county. Like everywhere else, it's being used as a main street for a population center that is way east of it. So no matter what improvements are made to US 19 unless the root problem is solved, the result will be the same as in Pasco, Pinellas, etc. For efficient road use and return on taxpayers' dollar, Citrus County needs a county center. Then once the pressure is off US 19 to be a strip development, it will be able to function better for those few people taking it intercounty vs. I-75.

Market demands and forces have a way of going on with or without you. Lecanto now has a junior college, high school, county government center and support services, hospital branch, doctors' offices, gas stations, etc. in a hodgepodge fashion that validate this centrifugal force trying to make a county "downtown" center in the midst of this unincorporated concentration of residential areas. We can either take the step to plan it and make it an asset and "place" to be proud of or go on pretending that it will all work out at random. Ask Houston about "Random Planning" and its enormous expenses and degradation of quality of life. It's time to cut to the chase and stop wandering from one developer's interest to another's and their falsely touted economic benefits.