Thursday’s Santa Rosa County board of commissioners meeting heard a presentation from Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) representative, Peggy Kelly and Amy Wiwi, Metric Engineering, the consulting firm handling the Project Development and Environment (PD&E) studying the expansion of U.S. 90 from Glover Lane to S.R. 87S in East Milton.
Wiwi said, “I know all of you are familiar with the State Road 87 connector PD&E study. During that study, the traffic count forecast reflected that US 90 was quickly nearing its capacity.” She said the purpose of the 87 connector, alternatives to be presented to the public in September, did reduce traffic in downtown Milton by 20 percent. “However, the model shows that U.S. 90 will still fail by the year 2035. The purpose of this project,” she said, “is to find an improvement to east, west capacity on U.S. 90.” Wiwi said the presentation she gave would be the same for the July 15 kickoff of the study.
According to the map used, the area of study will include the six-mile stretch of U.S. 90 mentioned above as well as a northbound stretch of Dogwood Drive and Stewart Street.
Wiwi said the current study is in the Efficient Transportation Decision Making phase, the first of three, which involves the Department of Environmental Protection, the Army Corps of Engineers, Fish and Wildlife, elected officials, state historic preservation office, and public involvement. Wiwi said, “We will be following the National Environmental Policy Act, better known as NEPA, throughout this process.”
She said the project will take into account the key issues of preserving historic downtown Milton and Blackwater River, and will always include public input.
“These are the potential corridors we are looking at today. All alternatives will include improving US 90 from Blackwater River Bridge to SR 87 S. Alternative one also studies widening the existing US 90 through Milton,” said Wiwi. She said this first alternative would likely not perform well due to affecting the historic area and limited right-of-way, but it will be studied nevertheless.
“Alternative two includes improving old U.S. 90 as well as Hill Street and following the railroad tracks to the crossing of Blackwater River. Alternative three studies a connection at U.S. 90 and 89, Dogwood Drive and continuing east just north of TR Jackson Pre-K connecting up with Hill Street and paralleling the railroad across the river. Alternative four studies a possible one-way pair just north of Berry Hill and north of the historic district.” Wiwi said until the traffic study is finished, it is unknown whether any of these roads will be two-lane, four-lane, or one-way pairs.
“Our next meeting,” Wiwi said, “will be the Alternatives meeting, where we start showing the public some of the affects of the alternatives, and that will be in the winter of this year,” following the July 15 kickoff presentation. In addition to meetings, Wiwi said July 1 a website should be available regarding the project as well as newsletters to property owners near the affected roads, and any other interested parties. By the end of the presentation, Commissioner Lynchard said, “You mentioned a 4-year timeline to completion. I wanted to clarify to everyone. That’s a four-year to complete the PD&E study. We won’t be cutting the ribbon on a new road in four years.”
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: FDOT studies US Hwy 90 alternatives