Robert F. Roscow
The discontent voiced by many of the members of the Suncoast Parkway 2 Advisory Committee is evidence that the "partnering" approach that the Florida Department of Transportation purports to be using is a sham.
Partnering involves a fair Thayer and equal dissemination of data and concepts to all parties, public as well as agencies. The DOT has yet to even answered the first substantive question: "Why are we building this road?"
Florida's Turnpike Executive Director James L. Ely also undermined the very partnering process by lobbying the Realtors Association of Citrus County in May of 2002. Ely said in his address to this group, "What would happen to our quality of life or pursuit of happiness , if we didn't have that highway?" His speech was anything but objective.
At a clearly factual level, two things will definitely occur if the parkways built:
This effect will go far beyond the boundaries of the parkways 400 ft. right-of-way. The sound energy from the sources will only reached the sound level that one hears during a light rain or the level normal to a rural neighborhood at a distance of more than 1 mile from the source.
In other words, the parkway will create a noise corridor over 2 miles wide since sound travels in all directions. When you have no other sources of sound around you and you expect quiet, this sound will be your "quiet" reference level or ambient environmental noise level.
Kevin Thibault of the DOT to indulge this very fact to the residence of Silverthorn, a development in Hernando County that the Suncoast Parkway 1 cuts through, when he said, "They had the expectation that they would get pre-Suncoast noise. I can't build a wall high enough for that. It's not the panacea they expected."
It is important to note that he knew the scientifically predictable fact when the DOT was selling the Suncoast 1 to these very same people, as well as to those of the communities of Cheval and Brookeridge to the south.
The press, citizens and public officials of Citrus County should ask these communities about the DOT's truthfulness.
They should also realize that given the 24-mile. length of the Suncoast 2; over 31,000 acres of Citrus County will experience this transformation in their natural environment. So, whether you are trying to get a suntan in your backyard, make a putt or listen for the sound of a particular tweety bird in the Annutteliga Hammock or Lecanto sand hills conservation areas, this is what you will hear.
Now to the DOT's prime deception.
Everyone is currently focused on the impacts of the Suncoast 2 on the immediate area of road. That's not the problem. If one goes to http://www.dot.state.fl.us/planning/systems/fihs/SystemMap1/FIHSsystem.html, the DOT's Web site for the Florida Intrastate Highway System (FIHS), you will get the "big picture." [Webmaster note: this link has since been removed on the DOT website]
Review the maps at that site. These maps indicate that U.S. 19 from Citrus County on up to the Georgia line are envisioned as being an "upgrade to interstate reliever." Maybe you have wondered how little ol' Citrus rated the road improvements now underway on State Road 44 East of Inverness.
Well, as planned by the DOT, SR 44 will give traffic on I-75 and the Florida Turnpike an alternate route to U.S. 19 all the way north to the Georgia line and south to Tampa Bay. The Suncoast 2 is a critical piece in this whole scheme, since it gives access to the underutilize parts of U.S. 19 north of Citrus through the unpopulated Nature Coast counties.
So how will all this traffic gets through Inverness? If a bypass is proposed, who will pay for it and when will get built?
additionally, if the Suncoast 2 is built, and unanticipated result will be the use of County Road 491 by the residents of the burgeoning developments off State Route 200 and Southwest Marion County to get to the Tampa Bay area and coastal beaches.
Who is going to pay for those improvements and when? Do the citizens of citrus County believe for one minute that the DOT is sinking millions of dollars into a County of 120,000 people, which will take years even grow to the 1990 population of Pasco County, just for them?
Think about it and then demand to the truth.
-- Rober T. Roscow is a native of Inverness now living in Hamden, Conn., who still owns a farm north of Inverness. Roscow is a practicing architect who has done extensive research on planning and preservation in Florida and has served for more than 12 years on the planning and zoning commission of Hamden and the regional planning council. Guest columnists write their own views on subjects they choose, which do not necessarily reflect the opinion of this newspaper.