Sorrento Road widening now a top priority; Milton U.S. 90 widening stays the course
Local elected officials moved up the priority of widening Sorrento Road in a meeting of the Florida-Alabama Transportation Planning Organization on Wednesday in Pensacola.
The single action by the board also kept the proposed widening of U.S. 90 in downtown Milton moving forward in its design phase.
The board, known as the TPO, is made up of elected officials from Escambia and Santa Rosa counties, as well as Baldwin County, Alabama, and sets the priority for funding state road projects for the region.
The TPO voted Wednesday to make a change to its priority list for "non-strategic" road projects. The biggest change was to reprioritize the widening of Sorrento Road from the No. 19 position to the No. 8 position on the list.
Previously: After a string of deaths, safety improvement are coming to Sorrento Road next month
The TPO sets several transportation project priorities. Road projects are either placed on a higher priority "strategic" list or a lower priority "non-strategic" list. The Florida Department of Transportation then makes decisions about which projects to fund based on the rankings.
Moving the Sorrento Road project to the top 10 means that the project will be eligible to receive state funding more quickly from FDOT in the next budget cycle. Once funded, the process of completing a state road project takes several years, with environmental and design study phases of the project taking multiple years.
State Rep. Alex Andrade, R-Pensacola, previously told the News Journal having the TPO move the project up on the list was a crucial step toward making it a reality.
While the Legislature could put funds directly toward the project, Gov. Ron DeSantis has taken up previous governors' practice of vetoing road projects that have not gone through a local TPO process, which is what happened to the Beulah pedestrian bridge funded by the Legislature earlier this year.
Escambia County District 1 Commission Jeff Bergosh told the TPO members that the Sorrento project is a critical public safety issue.
The road has been the site of numerous head-on collisions in recent years that have resulted in several fatalities.
In January, two people were killed and a third person was critically injured in a head-on crash on the road. In June, another man was killed in a head-on collision that severely injured two others.
"People are tired of seeing the white crosses on the side of the road," Bergosh said.
The backstory: 'I'm sick of seeing white crosses on that road': What is proposed to make Sorrento Road safer
FDOT has already committed to adding more safety improvements along the road as part of current repaving projects, including "rumble strips" to alert drivers when they are drifting outside of their lane.
The previous No. 8 project was a proposal to widen Burgess Road between U.S. Highway 29 and Hillburn Road, which was moved down to No. 19.
No funding has been allocated to the proposed Burgess Road project.
Milton widening project kept moving
Milton City Councilman and TPO board member Vernon Compton asked the TPO to hear a presentation on the city's proposal on an alternative to widening U.S. 90 through downtown Milton and consider deprioritizing the project until alternatives could be fully studied.
Because of time constraints, Compton didn't give the presentation but asked it to be sent to members of the TPO board.
FDOT has been working on the project since 2014 and completed the lengthy preliminary design and environmental study phase of the project in 2019.
The project is currently in the design phase.
The TPO board vote Friday kept the project at its current ranking of No. 10 on the priority list, with TPO members Compton and Pensacola City Councilman Casey Jones voting against the proposed list.
Jones said he thought that widening the road through downtown Milton would destroy the area's walkability.
The dilemma: Does downtown Milton have to choose between foot and car traffic? Or can it have both?
Dig deeper: Milton council considers soliciting alternatives to widening U.S. 90 through downtown
Santa Rosa County Commissioners Bob Cole and James Calkins also said they supported Milton's request but voted for the current rankings because they didn't want to vote against the other projects on the list.
A large group of Milton residents and property owners were in attendance at the meeting. Several downtown Milton property owners were opposed to the widening project while a larger group of residents supported moving forward with the project.
FDOT liaison Bryant Paulk told the TPO that alternatives to the projects were already considered and rejected in previous phases under the preliminary design and environmental study, however, the department did not oppose the city funding its own study.
TPO staff reported public comments received online before the meeting tallied 45 people in support of the widening project are four opposed.
The vote on Thursday also added a new flyover in Gulf Breeze going to Pensacola Beach to the priority list at No. 11 on the "strategic priority" list and a multi-modal overpass at the same location at No. 28 on the "non-strategic" list.
Jim Little can be reached at jwlittle@pnj.com and 850-208-9827.
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Sorrento Road widening moves up TPO state road project priority list
