{"id":29439,"date":"2023-01-27T20:52:10","date_gmt":"2023-01-28T01:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=29439"},"modified":"2023-01-27T20:52:15","modified_gmt":"2023-01-28T01:52:15","slug":"developers-tracking-sunrail-train-into-polk-including-lakeland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2023\/01\/27\/developers-tracking-sunrail-train-into-polk-including-lakeland\/","title":{"rendered":"Developers tracking SunRail train into Polk including Lakeland"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

According to Lakeland Community and Economic Development Planning and Transportation Manager Chuck Barmby, area developers are asking a question that lots of Polk County residents are also asking.<\/p>\n\n\n

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When will SunRail make it into Polk County?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEvery multi-family developer that wants to develop in downtown Lakeland, and I\u2019m sure this is an issue in Haines City and Auburndale, is that they are interested in SunRail,\u201d Barmby said. \u201cWhen is it going to come? Right now we are saying it is being studied.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SunRail currently operates 16 stations on about 50 miles of track through Volusia, Seminole, Orange and Osceola counties. Funding will be available to extend services another 40 miles into Lakeland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To make it viable, there would need to be 300 riders every day at each of the three proposed Polk stations, Polk Transportation Planning Organization Executive Director Parag Agrawal said back in April. Based on the 2017 Polk Transit Plan, almost 82 percent of workers in Polk County drive alone to work, with .5 percent using public transit and 11 percent carpooling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Once full funding is secured, SunRail would expand into Polk County in four phases. The first phase is already underway with Citrus Connection bus service to the SunRail station in Poinciana in Osceola County. Phase two would be expanding into Haines City at an estimated cost of $146 million. Phase three would be expanding into Auburndale at an estimated cost of $292 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The final phase would be an expansion into Lakeland at a cost of around $1 billion, Agrawal said.  SunRail expansion to Lakeland is still years away but planners there are preparing now. The city owns land north of the RP Funding Center which would be perfect for an intermodal rail \/ bus station, in close proximity to the downtown area and the Bonnet Springs Park.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But walking from the downtown area to these amenities will be difficult, requiring pedestrians to cross the rail line and several busy roads. \u201cThe (SunRail) Intermodal center is probably our biggest focal point right now in this area right now,\u201d Barmby said, describing this area as disconnected from the downtown area and barren.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Barmby said about three years ago, Florida Department of Transportation architects drew up a $30 million intermodal station which may be built in Lakeland, with the city donating the land as the local cost match.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFlorida Children\u2019s Museum is moving there (near Bonnet Springs Park and the proposed intermodal station), restaurants will be located there, concert venues, this is going to be Lakeland\u2019s central park but right now you can\u2019t get there,\u201d Barmby said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are working with the Bonnet Springs team and FDOT on potential routes and connections.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two roundabouts have been proposed in the area to help improve pedestrian connectivity and safety. In addition to planning for the expansion of SunRail, Brightline high speed rail service may get a stop near Interstate 4 in Lakeland in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Local planners and FDOT staff are focusing on traffic signal prioritization to help commuters get from the downtown area to the interstate exit at U.S. Highway 98. Dedicated bus lanes are also in the planning stage, Barmby said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 According to the 2017 Polk Transit Plan, about half of Polk County residents travel to other counties for work, with 25 percent traveling to Orange County and 23 percent traveling to Hillsborough, or around 131,000 people traveling outside of the county for work. In the opposite direction, around 40,000 people travel to Polk County for work, with about 17,000 coming from Hillsborough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to Lakeland Community and Economic Development Planning and Transportation Manager Chuck Barmby, area developers are asking a question that lots of Polk County residents are also asking. When will… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29442,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[4379],"class_list":["post-29439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-developers-tracking-sunrail-train-into-polk-including-lakeland"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29439\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}