Winter Haven officials are poised, after a slight delay, to approve the next major expansion of the Lake Ashton development along Thompson Nursery Road in a formal rural and now booming suburban corridor along the Winter Haven-Lake Wales boundary.
As the vote approaches, some area residents such as former County Commissioner Jean Reed are asking how this project will affect traffic on the two-lane road when up to 1,747 new homes are built and sold out there.
In an exchange of emails involving Reed and county and city staff, county officials acknowledged there are no current plans to widen Thompson Nursery Road or to make any further intersection improvements within the next five years.
The main intersections that would be affected by the expansion are Ruby Lake Drive and U.S. 27.
County officials assured everyone there is adequate traffic capacity and that isn’t expected to change within the next five years.
Discussion of the widening and realigning of Thompson Nursery Road/Eloise Loop Road has been under way for several years, but Polk County officials have never come up with the tens of millions of dollars the project would cost.
It was one of the projects money from an additional half-cent sales tax proposed in was expected to fund. Voters rejected the tax.