6-lane Hwy. 98 planned
BY FRANKLIN HAYES Gulf Breeze News franklin@gulfbreezenews.com

The above diagram shows the project will begin at the eastern end of the Naval Live Oaks Preserve and end at Portside Drive, near KFC and Walgreen's.

Concerned residents and business owners gathered at the South Santa Rosa Recreation Center to mull over the state's proposed plans for US 98. Currently, the widening project could displace three families and 17 businesses.

A new six-lane version of the roadway may be coming through a neighborhood near you, but not at least for another five years, officials said. On April 24, state transportation officials and engineering consultants presented interested parties with detailed maps and artistic renditions of a new and improved six-lane Highway 98 stretching from the eastern border of the Naval Live Oak reservation to just east of the Garcon Point bridge.

The meeting was one step in a long process to collect public comments and incorporate them into the proposed $65 million highway improvements. The engineers involved in the project say they value public opinion and have gone back to the drawing board once already because of it.

"There were objections to the way it was laid out," Florida Department of Transportation (DOT) Spokesman Tommie Speights said of a previous plan to widen 98. "The original plan was for six lanes and access roads. The access roads take up more property, more right of way. That was the basic objection."

The latest version of the study is actually a portion of an older study that included a larger portion of US 98. It includes adding lanes for traffic, pedestrians and bicycles from Bayshore Road to Portside Drive.

Between 1994 and 1996 a preliminary study of US 98 from the Gulf Breeze end of the Pensacola Bay Bridge to Hurlburt Field in Navarre, a distance of approximately 30 miles, was conducted to survey the impacts of widening US 98. The plan called for a tremendous amount of right of way to be purchased and garnered little public support. The right of way cost estimate at the time was approximately $250 million and the construction cost was estimated at $144 million.

Fast forward 11 years. Inflation has eradicated any antiquated cost estimates and traffic congestion along the corridor has increased. As Jim Clements perused the long maps of the East/West corridor, he spoke casually about what changes the business he was representing could see.

"Right now we don't have to relocate," said Clements, who works with Urmos Chiropractic Health Center on gulf Breeze Parkway. "Right now we're trying to figure out what to do. It depends on how much right of way the state needs. We may have to move our sign. "

Harvey Jordan, 79, thinks the new plan is "a lot of nothing" and that it will not help with congestion problems already occurring in the area.

"It's going to be a big parking lot," Jordan said. "It's going to bottleneck at the Naval Live Oaks."

Speights was more optimistic that the proposed 4.2 miles of improvements would bring relief.

"We want to relieve congestion in the area," Speights said. "Our main intent is to improve safety features and relieve congestion."

At the April 24 meeting, engineers and consultants from Volkert and Associates and PBS&J collected written comments from the public. The next public meeting is tentatively scheduled for September of this year. The project is currently not on the DOT's five-year work program.