DESTIN — The Northwest Florida Transportation Corridor Authority approved its seventh, and possibly last, master plan Thursday to help ease traffic congestion on U.S. Highway 98.
Its goals in 2013 are far more modest than the ones laid out in 2007, when the newly minted organization had money to spend and an incoming House Speaker in Destin’s Ray Sansom to lean on.
Gone is the talk of a billion dollar bypass running the length of Eglin Air Force Base. In its place, this group of authority members debated the merits of a 1.67-mile project they call the Destin Cross Town Connector.
The $6.6 million project would provide an east-west alternative to U.S. 98 and help open what most members believe to be the most congested area between Pensacola and Franklin County.
“Destin is the biggest bottleneck on the whole corridor,” said Jim Anders, Walton County’s delegate to the eight-member board and one of four remaining original members.
But after board members and their advisers approved the strategy and praised its list of 10 priority projects, discussion turned to potentially lethal legislation.
Specifically, it is a bill to be voted on Monday in the state Senate that could do away with the Corridor Authority.
SB 1132 “completely revamps this authority” said HDR Engineering representative Bob Kellner, who has been following the legislation.
Under the bill, Escambia, Santa Rosa, Wakulla and Franklin counties would be dropped from the authority and Okaloosa, Walton, Bay and Gulf counties would be absorbed into something called a regional transportation finance authority.
The same legislation “turns governance and control of the Mid-Bay Bridge Authority” over to the new regional authority, said Jim Vest, the Bridge Authority’s executive director.
Only the Senate bill includes language that would break up the transportation authority, Kellner told the board, so even if it passes that chamber it still could die in a conference committee of the Senate and House.
A signature from Gov. Rick Scott also would be required.
“I don’t know what the realities of the discussion are,” Kellner told the board. “We just need to stay focused and see what the governor signs.”
Contact Daily News Staff Writer Tom McLaughlin at 850-315-4435 or tmclaughlin@nwfdailynews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TomMnwfdn.
