{"id":43966,"date":"2024-04-09T17:47:07","date_gmt":"2024-04-09T21:47:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=43966"},"modified":"2024-04-09T17:47:12","modified_gmt":"2024-04-09T21:47:12","slug":"22-million-cost-has-materializes-over-the-latest-designs-for-the-south-florida-avenue-road-diet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2024\/04\/09\/22-million-cost-has-materializes-over-the-latest-designs-for-the-south-florida-avenue-road-diet\/","title":{"rendered":"$22 Million Cost has Materializes Over The Latest Designs for the South Florida Avenue Road Diet"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Are the people in Dixieland going to pay for this?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has been almost four years since concrete barriers were installed along South Florida Avenue between Lime and Ariana streets, converting that mile from five narrow lanes to three standard-sized ones \u2014 which was supposed to be a one-year experiment.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Now the facts:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  • The South Florida Avenue \u201croad diet\u201d has been very controversial. (51% hate it)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Inflation and labor shortages have increased the cost estimate to $22 million.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Construction could begin in 2027, but only if the city and FDOT can agree on how much each should pay and secure the funds.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Under the current plan, the road will be rebuilt with three lanes and wide sidewalks.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • If commissioners want to abandon the plan, it would cost $1 million to remove the barriers and make the road four lanes. But that might not be much faster and would not address safety concerns.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    Mayor Mutz and the Commissioners already knew the costs and the concept plans years ago. The only one that was surprised was City Commissioner Guy LaLonde, Jr who started in January.<\/p>\n\n\n

    \n
    \"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

    \u201cTruly, I think the problem is we are looking for someone to blame and the reality is, we must remain good partners to accomplish this important work together without pointing fingers.\u201d<\/em> MAYOR BILL MUTZ<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    City Commissioner Guy LaLonde, Jr., who joined the commission in January, voiced his frustration that FDOT wouldn\u2019t fully pay for improvements to its own roadway. \u201cI feel like we\u2019ve been taken to the prom and then left at the doorstep without a corsage,\u201d <\/em>LaLonde said.  \u201cHow do you get to the dance?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cI still cannot discern if this was their intent from the beginning, to test and not fund, or if \u2014 because of the dramatic growth in the state, and inflated prices of road projects with no funding source \u2014 it fell to the bottom of their priorities.\u201d<\/em> CITY COMMISSIONER STEPHANIE MADDEN<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    People are \u201cunhappy with the barriers that are there now,\u201d<\/em> Read said.  \u201cWe put them up, we can\u2019t take them down.  I think a lot of people would take them down if we had the opportunity.  It\u2019s not my decision \u2014 it could be a part of mine.  We\u2019re trying to do the best we can for you.  We don\u2019t have the money.  I say a prayer every day that somebody\u2019s not hurt.\u201d \u201cWe don\u2019t have the money and we\u2019re not sure when we\u2019re going to get the money.\u201d<\/em> CITY COMMISSIONER BILL READ<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cIt was my understanding that the city would pay for design, engineering work, sidewalk widening, etc., with the state paying for the road construction and improvements.\u201d<\/em> CITY COMMISSIONER CHAD MCLEOD<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Are the people in Dixieland going to pay for this? It has been almost four years since concrete barriers were installed along South Florida Avenue between Lime and Ariana streets,… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43967,"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":[6,12,14],"tags":[8096],"class_list":["post-43966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","category-local","category-news","tag-22-million-cost-has-materializes-over-the-latest-designs-for-the-south-florida-avenue-road-diet"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43966","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43966"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43969,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43966\/revisions\/43969"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}