Latest Turnpike Route Spares Bok; Still Threatens Rural Landowners, Conservation Lands

The best that can be said about the updated preferred route for the Central Polk Parkway East is that it could have been worse.
Thanks to heavy lobbying by Bok Tower advocates the turnpike folks are now proposing a route that is probably no more threatening to the preserve’s serenity than State Road 60 or U.S. 27.
That route still takes it through a rural homestead behind Eagle Ridge Mall though.
A proposed route across U.S. 27 farther north takes it across the Buck Mann Ranch and some other wetlands near Lake Annie that Polk County is working on restoring as part of a regional water-quality improvement project, so it could be a good partnership.
The real problems begin farther north on the outskirts of Davenport.
The planned corridor runs through some private property near public conservation land in the Marion Creek Basin.
For the private property owners, the intrusion is unwelcome, according to public statements some of them have made.
For people visiting some of the conservation lands the intrusion is more of a quality of experience erosion as much as anything.
Here’s why.
They are not talking about building a country lane here.
The planned toll road corridor has a tentative 500-foot–wide diameter, which will eventually be reduced to 310 feet if the project ever reaches the design and right-of-way acquisition phases.
That width is nearly the length of a football field.
For rural property owners, that’s a big chunk of land to lose to an intense infrastructure project because whatever peace and quiet they enjoyed will be replaced by the thrum of traffic and the erosion of any dark sky conditions they might have enjoyed.
For recreational users of the public conservation land this project–if it is ever built–will, coupled with the planned widening of Cypress Parkway, provide noise pollution in stereo.
That is in addition to the compounding of smoke-management issues for conservation land managers.
In addition, it is still an open question whether this project will in the end be considered financially feasible and whether it will really do anything useful to alleviate future projected traffic congestion on U.S, 27.
A project consultant I spoke to at the meeting said they had done some modeling based on cellphone GPS data and other digital information and thought the road would attract enough motorists to make it work even if U.S. 27 continues to clog with local traffic.
Maybe so, but the conservation downsides just seem so compelling that it seems the money could be spent more responsibly elsewhere.