State transportation officials will host a public meeting Tuesday from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the W.H. Stuart Center, 1710 U.S. 17 in Bartow to provide information and answer questions about a new toll road called the Central Polk Parkway.
\nThe new toll road will run from somewhere near State Road 60 in south Winter Haven to the Polk Parkway somewhere around the intersection of Thornhill Road and Winter Lake Road.
\nIt is intended to divert truck traffic from the CSX freight terminal and planned future industrial park development
\nOne of the still unanswered questions concerning this project is how much of the Marshall Hampton Reserve will be sacrificed to make way for it..
\nThe Marshall Hampton Reserve is a 1,167-acre former ranch purchased by the Southwest Florida Water Management District and the Polk County Environmental. Lands Program in 2008,
\nIt lies across Lake Hancock from Circle B Bar Reserve and is the northern trailhead for the Panther Point Trail that runs along the lake’s eastern shore and eventually will connect to the Fort Fraser Trail.
\nThe trail system is popular with hikers, equestrians and bicyclists because it provides some good wildlife observation opportunities and preserves green space in an increasingly urban area.
\nDetails on the road project are scant at this point. A website for the project will not go live until the day of the meeting.
\nSome of the questions relating to the road’s impact on the Hampton property include:
\nHow much land will be taken for the road itself and how much more will be taken for related purposes such as retention ponds and construction equipment and material staging areas?
\nHow will public access to the property occur during and after construction?
\nHow will the increase in noise pollution resulting traffic on the toll\u00a0 road , some of which is likely to be elevated, affect visitor experience and whether there is any practical way to mitigate the impact?
\nSome of you may have other questions. Show up at the meeting and ask them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
State transportation officials will host a public meeting Tuesday from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the W.H. Stuart Center, 1710 U.S. 17 in Bartow to provide information and answer questions about a new toll road called the Central Polk Parkway. The new toll road will run from somewhere near State Road 60 in south […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gci"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=772"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":783,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772\/revisions\/783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}