Toll road in northwest resident’s future

In what could be the first of many new toll roads in Florida, state officials announced to Historic City News yesterday that they are “moving ahead” with a 15-mile project around the St. Johns – Duval County line.

The $291 million road – when eventually completed by 2016 – will connect Interstate 10 east of Jacksonville to Blanding Boulevard in Clay County by taking existing roads and widening them to four lanes. Blanding Boulevard is currently the scene of repeated congestion, especially with drivers coming south from Jacksonville on Interstate 295.

The project will become part of the Florida Turnpike Enterprise and will use electronic tollbooths. The expected toll will be about 15 cents a mile or a total of $2.25 for the entire segment.

The toll road project is part of a new focus that the administration of Governor Rick Scott has put on speeding up road projects. Scott this week defended the use of toll roads as a way to create financing in a time when there are limited financial resources.

The Scott administration wants to use savings in other road projects to accelerate work on nearly $1 billion worth of road projects and to push ahead with new turnpike projects.

The initial plan for the First Coast Outer Beltway was to construct a road that would link I-10 and Interstate 95 outside the existing loop of I-295. But that project has been put on hold and instead the state is moving ahead with the scaled-down project.
“The First Coast Outer Beltway project brings a high level of excitement with the accelerated schedule of one of the largest engineering projects in Northeast Florida,” said Department of Transportation Secretary Ananth Prasad in a statement.

The Florida Times-Union reported that there was some skepticism among local residents about the toll road proposal that was announced by Lt. Jennifer Carroll at a Wednesday press conference.

The newspaper also noted that Carroll and other state officials struggled to explain why the road was being tolled after Duval County voters chose to do away with all tolls in the late 1980s, agreeing to a half-cent sales tax instead.

“This is different,” Carroll was quoted as saying. “Before, you had no choice to pay a toll going over the Fuller Warren Bridge.”

Photo credits: © 2011 Historic City News archive photograph