The idea that building a new road will relieve congestion on an existing road has been examined often and found lacking.

That fact has not deterred Polk County transportation planners from continuing to defend the idea that the construction of the eastern leg of the Central Polk Parkway is just what drivers on U.S. 27 need.

There is no question that the section of U.S. 27 in Polk County—particularly the section in northeast Polk north of Haines City—is congested at many times of day and will become even more congested in the future.

This result also was no surprise to everyone except some Polk County planners.

When the area in the northern U.S. 27 corridor began to explode 25 years ago, a senior Polk planner told me it caught him and his staff by surprise.

That surprised me, because these were the same people who fought (along with the local development community and the County Commission) against state growth-management planners (when there was such a thing) for years to gain development entitlements along the highway after freezes in the late 1980s wiped out citrus production north of Interstate 4 and left many landowners with no alternative but to sell to developers.

What else did they expect to happen?

There were plans to build alternative roads along the corridor to relieve local traffic, but the funding for much of that evaporated when the development bubble blew up in 2008 and the tax base plummeted.

Meanwhile, those development entitlements and the ever-liberalized county land-use policies created a sea of new subdivisions and commercial strip developments and the inevitable demand for traffic lights, which added to the congestion.

The push to build a new toll road that will wind through the suburbs of Lake Wales, Haines City and surrounding communities assumes that U.S. 27 drivers will somehow agree to pay for the privilege to detour miles out of their way to get back to U.S. 27 near I-4 only to return to even worse gridlock similar to what daily commuters face on I-4 where two other toll roads and Walt Disney World’s exits converge.

That idea also ignores the fact that the new road and inevitable demand for interchanges to serve development interests will create additional development magnets to what is already happening on the outskirts of these communities.

It is hard not to assume that whoever moves into the subdivisions along the new toll road will use it. The combination of local and detoured traffic will simply move the congestion to two roads instead of one.

Meanwhile, planners appear to have scrapped plans to widen U.S. 17-92 between Haines City and the Osceola County line, arguing it will not help the U.S. 27 congestion problem, even though it might help local traffic flow.

However, the section of U.S. 17-92 in Osceola County is being widened, which will create a bottleneck for motorists headed to Polk County and additional congestion.

Finally, the idea that people should be able to drive around in one of the fastest-growing counties in one of the most populous states in the nation and not experience traffic backups on major highways is simply delusional.

It’s too bad the powers that be plan to spend north of $1 billion to confirm that delusion.

You have to scroll down into the Transportation Planning Organization’s Dec. 15 agenda backup (they say it is at page 40, but is really at page 76) to find out what’s happening with the controversial eastern leg of the Central Polk, Parkway.

This is a proposed toll road that would potentially loop someday from State Road 60 on the south side of Winter Haven through rural areas of northeast Polk County to reach Interstate 4 somewhere near the interchange with another toll road that loops along Orlando’s western suburbs.

If you think the route to Orlando on I-4 congested now, just wait a few years. It will be a lot worse if these plans come to fruition.

Although there is the obligatory disclaimer that the decision on whether to construct these roads will require analysis per Florida law, it is hard to imagine that the Florida Department of Transportation and its allies in the development and road-building lobby would propose to spend $918.9 million (that’s almost $1 billion) on engineering and environmental studies and right of way acquisition on a road project they have no intention of constructing unless the state is amazingly fiscally irresponsible.

What is really interesting is that the rationale for this road project is partly to relieve congestion on U.S 27. There is quite a bit of local traffic on U.S. 27 that area residents contend could be relieved if only the section of U.S. 17-92 between Haines City and the Osceola County line were widened to four lanes.

In the latest funding proposal, that project has been defunded. It may be no coincidence that much of the undeveloped land along that segment is marginally developable, if you believe in coincidences.

This project was shelved several years ago because it was considered not economically feasible. Times and politics change and urban sprawl is on the rebound as the economy improves.

Besides, the Polk County growth plan is subject to change at any moment to allow more and denser development. The cost of providing services will come later.

State growth management laws were tossed out the window years ago and transportation and any other kinds of concurrency have become museum artifacts.

Prepare for the worst.

Polk County commissioners voted 5-0 Tuesday to deny approval for a race track on former ranch land near the shore of Lake Walkinwater, the county’s largest lake.

The proposal drew opposition from area residents, including the manager of the ranch next door whose owner sold the applicant the land. A recurring concern was the noise the facility would have generated, which they said would diminish their peace and quiet, nearby livestock operations and a nearby bald eagle nest.

The land also lies in an area designated as part of the Florida wildlife corridor that connects tens of thousands of acres to public and private conservation lands.

Several years ago county planners, notably Erik Peterson, presented a rosy picture of an alleged soil recycling and manufacturing plant on the outskirts of Lakeland called BS Ranch.

County commissioners bought the hype and approved the permit. They have regretted it ever since.

They should have known better than to trust someone who started a business without getting proper permits, but that’s the way things are done in Polk County sometimes.

There were constant odor complaints that kept county code-enforcement staffers occupied for years and eventually ended in a legal fight and the state environmental permitting agency’s conclusion that this wasn’t such a great project after all.

That brings us to Tuesday’s appeal hearing before the County Commission over a proposed private race track in a rural area adjacent to Lake Walk-in-Water east of Lake Wales.

According to the county staff report, Peterson assured the applicant this was a doable project when he first put out feelers before investing his money.

But the staff report accompanying Tuesday’s hearing raises red flags for anyone paying attention.

It states “little improvement is needed to make this site suitable (for its proposed use)” I guess that depends whether “little” means an asphalt race track, a dirt track, associated buildings and retention areas and facilities to contain fuel spills.

The staff report concludes there is no problem with incompatibility with surrounding land uses. The voluminous comments from area property owners seem to belie that claim.

The staff report states there are no plans to alter the natural drainage patterns after earlier confirming that the land drains toward the lake.

Additionally, the county staff seems to be confused about the location of the property, noting repeatedly that it would require permits from the Southwest Florida Water Management District when in fact the property lies well within the boundaries of the South Florida Water Management District. The applicant’s consultant made the same mistake at the Planning Commission hearing.

Beyond that, there are other questions.

Why is this not spot zoning?

Why isn’t the applicant required to submit a binding site plan to ensure lakeshore habitat is protected or amend the land-use change to impose a conservation land use on that portion of the property?

The applicant may claim correctly that he made a substantial investment in the property to achieve his dreams.

However, that seems to be his problem, not the County Commission’s.

The state’s first Springs Protection Zone was approved this week by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission for Nichols Spring and its spring run to the Withlacoochee River in Sumter County, according to an agency press release.

Nichols Spring is a second-magnitude spring that is surrounded by land owned the family of former Florida Sen. Charles Dean, an advocate for spring protection in Florida.

The action came after state officials had determined that anchoring, mooring, beaching and grounding vessels along the shoreline had caused damage to vegetation in and around the spring. Those activities will be prohibited in the protection zone.

This will not prohibit public access to the spring and will not restrict the use of rafts or inner tubes, FWC officials said, vessels will have to be moored outside the protection zone.

The controversy over the potential development of Creek Ranch near Lake Hatchineha has taken an unexpected turn.

Owner Harold Baxter has applied for consideration to seek the state’s purchase of a conservation easement over the property.

His application is scheduled to be discussed by the state’s Acquisition and Restoration Council when it meets Dec. 8 in Tallahassee.

The property lies in a corridor that contains thousands of acres of public and private conservation lands north and south of the ranch.

Marian Ryan, conservation chair for Sierra’s Ancient Islands Group, plans to testify in favor of the proposal.

The property has been the subject of intensive public discussion after the longtime cattle ranch was purchased by Baxter, a local developer, and was announced as the site of a housing development and a new high school.

Area residents objected to putting a new high school in what they contend is an important wildlife corridor. There have been documented sightings of Florida panther and Florida black bear nearby.

Residents and at least one area property owner have proposed alternate school sites. School officials are evaluating the proposals.

Obviously, if the conservation easement purchase occurs, the ranch would no longer be available for a school site because the state would have purchased the development rights and school officials would be forced to look elsewhere.

Stay tuned.

The voters are ahead of the suits, it seems, based on the results of the Nov. 8 referendums in six counties in which the electorate was asked to tax themselves to preserve more green spaces.

Voters in Alachua, Brevard, Indian River, Nassau, Pasco and Polk approved a mix of property tax and sales tax increases to preserve what they can ahead of the bulldozers.

A couple of things were striking about the votes.

In two counties—Alachua and Polk–in which the local Republican Party recommended rejection, the measures passed anyway. There was a red ripple in Florida after all when it came to conservation.

And it was not as though voters were tax happy this year. Voters rejected proposed sales tax increases in Hernando, Hillsborough, Orange, St. Johns and Walton counties that were primarily proposed to catch up with transportation backlogs. Those backlogs are the inevitable result of approving development hand over fist without levying adequate impact fees to put development costs on a more pay-as-you-go basis.   

Looking ahead, the next challenge will be implementing the results of the elections. That will involve appointing committees to review acquisition proposals and finding landowners willing to participate with the expectation that they will receive fair compensation for their property. Once lands are purchased, management plans will follow and the public should be involved in this process.

Also, there is the prospect that the development community will propose a sales tax referendum in 2024 to finance so-called priority road projects. This would be the latest attempt in a history of local transportation sales tax referendums stretching back to 1992. Voters rejected all of them.

For Sierra, the issue has been some of the projects that have been listed as priorities that could be funded by any approved tax.

One involves realigning Deen Still Road to build a truck route through the Green Swamp Area of Critical State Concern and then continuing straight through thousands of acres of conservation lands—including a portion of Colt Creek State Park—to make a more direct connection between U.S. 27 and U.S. 98.

Others involve building brand-new roads through a corner of the Green Swamp and through rural lands in northeast Polk in what seems to be a way to build a controversial section of the Central Polk Parkway by other means.

Remain vigilant. Remain involved.