Citrus Chronicle
By: Terry Witt (terrywitt@chronicleonline.com)
Published: December 18, 206

The never-completed Suncoast Parkway 2 federal environmental study has died, and its former Web site will soon meet the same fate.

Florida Turnpike Enterprise officials announced in their December Suncoast 2 newsletter that the Web site will be discontinued Dec. 31, along with the toll-free information line.

The closing of the Web site is related to FTE’s decision to halt its federal Project Development and Engineering (PD&E) study. The study was stopped at the conclusion of a lawsuit that delayed it for two years.

The agency instead has dusted the cobwebs off an approved 1998 PD&E study that was never used, but the change of studies has made some of the information on the old Web site outdated.

There is no longer an Environmental Resource and Regulatory (ERRAG) group or a Suncoast Parkway Advisory Group (SPAG), and the old project schedule and alternative alignments map are no longer relevant.

Messages posted on the home page of the Suncoast 2 Web site say project activity is to resume soon, that the federal aid study was discontinued and the 1998 state-funded PD&E study is to be re-evaluated.

A new version of the Web site will be developed as the next stage of the project begins, according to FTE.

Much of the uncertainty about Suncoast 2 surrounds the potential route through western Citrus County. The four-lane toll road will pass through two conservation areas — the Lecanto Sandhills and Annutteligia Hammock — and may impact a number of subdivisions.

The old corridor map produced by FTE shows the 10 possible routes for the 26-mile toll road. The map is posted in the Lecanto Government Center and shows the subdivisions that would have been impacted.

In the latest Suncoast 2 newsletter, the old corridor map has been replaced with a color map showing the approved route for Suncoast 2 from the 1998 study, but it lacks enough detail to see subdivision plat lines or individual properties.

Hurley said that is no accident. She said the entire route must be re-evaluated to determine what has changed since 1998. She said some portions of the route may have to be tweaked. She said engineering teams will be hired to evaluate the entire route. Residents will begin to seeing those teams in the field.

“There’s no point in putting out a map like the one you see in the Lecanto Government Center until we know exactly where the road is going,” she said. “We may have to tweak it a little to the left or the right.”

The tentative schedule for the 1998 project re-evaluation indicates the beginning of “design re-evaluation” will begin in the summer of 2007 and a public information meeting will be scheduled for the winter of 2007.

In the spring of 2008, the schedule indicates 30 percent of the design will be complete along with the re-evaluation. A public hearing is will take place in the winter of 2008, and the final feasibility analysis in the spring of 2010.

FTE indicated it probably won’t return with answers to the questions posed by Citrus County commissioners until mid-to-late 2008, when the design is expected to be 60 percent complete.