Central FL Roads and Highways

[Jerry95]

12 hours ago, codypet said:

 

I must have missed this.   Sounds like they're just closing the picnic areas and the car lot, but keeping the truck lot.  That kind of makes sense.  What doesn't make sense is putting in a stormwater pond unless BTU is about to start on the north end?  If so that lady is about to get a whole lot more noise than she's losing from the rest area.  

They’re currently starting projects where they add an EB lane from EE Williamson to Lake Mary Blvd as well as rebuild the EE Williamson bridge. One extra lane means more impervious road surface and the need for a pond. So not only will they have noise from BTU but from the interim projects as well. 

[codypet]

10 hours ago, Jerry95 said:

They’re currently starting projects where they add an EB lane from EE Williamson to Lake Mary Blvd as well as rebuild the EE Williamson bridge. One extra lane means more impervious road surface and the need for a pond. So not only will they have noise from BTU but from the interim projects as well. 

I was not aware they were doing an interim project ahead of BTU.  That's a bit unusual.  My understanding was certain portions of BTU were being advanced, but I didn't realized completely other random projects were going forward ahead of it.

Edited December 3, 2019 by codypet

[WAJAS]

13 hours ago, codypet said:

I was not aware they were doing an interim project ahead of BTU.  That's a bit unusual.  My understanding was certain portions of BTU were being advanced, but I didn't realized completely other random projects were going forward ahead of it.

The bridge was a part of BTU.

I do not know if the new lane was also a part of BTU, but I wouldn’t be surprised. They might just be doing everything except the new express lanes right now.

[codypet]

Judging by the size of this pond, it doesn't seem like the rest area needs to be permanently closed.   Hmm

[AmIReal]

Not sure this is the best place for this, but here goes...

"Safety advocates have long complained that media outlets tend to blame pedestrians and cyclists who are hit by cars. Research suggests they’re right."

The argument boils down to the language used when reporting "accidents" (one of the questionable terms).

https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2019/12/news-journalism-traffic-deaths-road-safety-accident-research/603289/

 

[codypet]

You can extend it to the trains too.  There's a tendency to blame the trains in crashes.  Specific recent example was the calling Brightline the most dangerous train when the bulk of the crashes were a result of negligent drivers and suicides.

Edited December 16, 2019 by codypet

[spenser1058]

5 minutes ago, codypet said:

You can extend it to the trains too.  There's a tendency to blame the trains in crashes.  Specific recent example was the calling Brightline the most dangerous train when the bulk of the crashes were a result of negligent drivers and suicides.

I have to quibble a little with that comparison. Everyone knows that trains get the right of way by default (I certainly do - I was an engineer on the WDW railroad and was fully aware when we approached an at-grade crossing how little I could do if a car or guest was on the tracks).

In the case of Brightline, knowing how the trains were going through densely populated areas with infinite at-grade crossings, they were still trying to deflect safety oversight by the state. Sorry, but you can’t have it both ways. 

[dcluley98]

The studies are not wrong.   The thing is, a lot of effort has been made to "engineer" safety into pedestrian and bike  amenities over the years because, well, people do stupid things all the time. 

We have not seen a lot of these safety engineered aspects here, but they exist.   Just because people do stupid things to get hurt doesn't mean that we cannot try to make the overall incidence of accidents, injuries and deaths    less through intelligent design.  Bottom line is that most of our area is still created for car-based transportation and increasing speed over pedestrians and cyclists.   There are ways to accomplish this such as separated lanes, protected island intersections,  diagonal crossings, leading ped intervals and lighted crossings,  pedestrian bridges over major highways, right turn slip design,  roundabouts, traffic calming,  reduced conflict intersections, etc. etc. 

http://www.pedbikesafe.org/pedsafe/countermeasures.cfm

We are just now seeing some of these being applied and central Florida is far behind other regions in creating these safety measures. The key is to try to engineer out people doing stupid things through intelligent, intuitive design, because they are still going to to stupid things if they can. 

Edited December 16, 2019 by dcluley98

[orlandoguy]

I was pleased recently to see 4’ fencing installed on the landscaped island between the general use traffic lanes and the Lymmo lane on Livingston between Garland and the SunRail tracks.

Because it’s directly adjacent to LCS, I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen pedestrians cross Livingston in a haphazard manner to get into that island or the south side of Livingston and almost cause a near miss with a vehicle that’s traveling a legal speed and making legal turns. Pretty frightening. I’m all for pedestrian & cyclist safety, but sometimes we need a little nudge to help keep us and others safe.

[spenser1058]

Fun Fact from Frank Torres: the last time the crowd at an OC commission meeting as big as today’s for the Universal hearing was for SunRail.

https://twitter.com/mrfranktorres/status/1207027180192055296?s=21

 

[spenser1058]

Scott Maxwell notes that Universal got its way - but at a cost:

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/opinion/scott-maxwell-commentary/os-op-universal-orlando-kirkman-road-scott-maxwell-20191218-ylppy6abcbajvpzebforlqduly-story.html

I’m hoping he’s wrong since we have a year to get past it, but he suggests the bad blood may doom the transit tax (ironically, from the left and the right).

The thing that makes my heart sing, of course, is that there’s life in a major governmental entity. It had begun to seem like the only sentient life at local city halls was in Winter Park and Winter Garden and that’s just sad.

One other note: it was a 4-3 vote - commissioners don’t have to be clones - who knew?

From the Sentinel 

[HankStrong]

On ‎12‎/‎16‎/‎2019 at 3:00 PM, spenser1058 said:

I have to quibble a little with that comparison. Everyone knows that trains get the right of way by default (I certainly do - I was an engineer on the WDW railroad and was fully aware when we approached an at-grade crossing how little I could do if a car or guest was on the tracks).

In the case of Brightline, knowing how the trains were going through densely populated areas with infinite at-grade crossings, they were still trying to deflect safety oversight by the state. Sorry, but you can’t have it both ways. 

But the comment is correct, at the root, when you talk about the reporting of them.

Almost every time there is an accident, it is reported as "Another SunRail crash today, as..." or "Another person died after being struck by the Virgin Train..." when it should be reported as "Another person foolishly ignored the train crossing today, causing an accident..." or "Another sad suicide that likely caused permanent mental trauma and psychological damage to a train engineer today..."

[spenser1058]

Orange County leaders who voted for the Universal suggested the CRA left them little choice: they were wrong.

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-ne-orange-county-approves-universal-road-deal-20191219-ipx2tcvuejbdvns4242jcqirba-story.html

From the Sentinel 

[HankStrong]

22 minutes ago, spenser1058 said:

Orange County leaders who voted for the Universal suggested the CRA left them little choice: they were wrong.

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-ne-orange-county-approves-universal-road-deal-20191219-ipx2tcvuejbdvns4242jcqirba-story.html

From the Sentinel 

Can you throw the non-paywall folks a bone?  Summary?

[spenser1058]

36 minutes ago, HankStrong said:

Can you throw the non-paywall folks a bone?  Summary?

As an excuse for voting for the Universal road deal, at least two of the commissioners (still verifying if Jerry tried that excuse) claimed that the I-Drive CRA funds couldn’t be used for much else because they were dedicated funds.

As it turns out, that’s true today. However, if they wait until the end of the fiscal year (Sep 30), it can be moved over to the general fund and used at the county’s discretion.

It’s the same type of nonsense with the TDT. Two counties, Monroe and Bay, have found ways around that one. Interestingly, Matt Gaetz , probably my least favorite human on the planet and likely @orange87 ‘s hero, passed the enabling legislation for Bay County to allow them to pay for things like lifeguards and other improvements.

This was all a ruse designed at the request of Harris Rosen and the I-Drive crowd to let them control the pot. Strangely, Walmart and Publix don’t get to decide what the money they collect in sales taxes are used for but the tourism crowd thinks they do.

Had they not underpaid their people for years and objected to funding Lynx properly so their people could get to work (we won’t even discuss how many tourist workers have to rely on food stamps due to their low wages), they might have more of a leg to stand on.

Disney and Harris have, to their credit, been moving in the right direction but it’s just gone on too long.

As @prahaboheme can probably fill us in, Anaheim,CA has been fighting back for a while, having been in the same boat.

What’s really cool about all this is that the Sentinel has finally found its voice again and is doing what newspapers do. In an era where local papers are dying left and right and local officials think they can do whatever they want, this is YUGE.

If there’s anyway you can afford to subscribe to the Sentinel, please do. They’re definitely earning their keep these days.

 

Edited December 19, 2019 by spenser1058

[aent]

20 minutes ago, spenser1058 said:

As an excuse for voting for the Universal road deal, at least two of the commissioners (still verifying if Jerry tried that excuse) claimed that the I-Drive CRA funds couldn’t be used for much else because they were dedicated funds.

As it turns out, that’s true today. However, if they wait until the end of the fiscal year (Sep 30), it can be moved over to the general fund and used at the county’s discretion.

It’s the same type of nonsense with the TDT. Two counties, Monroe and Bay, have found ways around that one. Interestingly, Matt Gaetz , probably my least favorite human on the planet and likely @orange87 ‘s hero, passed the enabling legislation for Bay County to allow them to pay for things like lifeguards and other improvements.

This was all a ruse designed at the request of Harris Rosen and the I-Drive crowd to let them control the pot. Strangely, Walmart and Publix don’t get to decide what the money they collect in sales taxes are used for but the tourism crowd thinks they do.

Had they not underpaid their people for years and objected to funding Lynx properly so their people could get to work (we won’t even discuss how many tourist workers have to rely on food stamps due to their low wages), they might have more of a leg to stand on.

Disney and Harris have, to their credit, been moving in the right direction but it’s just gone on too long.

As @prahaboheme can probably fill us in, Anaheim,CA has been fighting back for a while, having been in the same boat.

What’s really cool about all this is that the Sentinel has finally found its voice again and is doing what newspapers do. In an era where local papers are dying left and right and local officials think they can do whatever they want, this is YUGE.

If there’s anyway you can afford to subscribe to the Sentinel, please do. They’re definitely earning their keep these days.

 

It definitely feels wrong to have a special taxing distirct only applied to certain people to improve a specific area, and then to move that money to any sort of general fund.

The TDT reallocation would be different, the tourists use our roads and transportation infrastructure, and it doesn't really make that much sense that we need to fund Visit Orlando for either the tourists or our residents. The TDT is charged on short term rentals everywhere, instead of the I-Drive Tax District which if you're outside the boundaries, you don't pay.

Edited December 19, 2019 by aent

[spenser1058]

1 hour ago, aent said:

It definitely feels wrong to have a special taxing distirct only applied to certain people to improve a specific area, and then to move that money to any sort of general fund.

The TDT reallocation would be different, the tourists use our roads and transportation infrastructure, and it doesn't really make that much sense that we need to fund Visit Orlando for either the tourists or our residents. The TDT is charged on short term rentals everywhere, instead of the I-Drive Tax District which if you're outside the boundaries, you don't pay.

I have no problem with using TDT funds for transit in the tourist area, road maintenance and yes, housing for the people that work there. Vegas uses it for other things and certainly has no problem keeping up with conventions- what do they know that we don’t?

The tourism industry has no problem paying their workers so little they qualify for food stamps, which is paid for by those of us outside the zone (heck, outside the state). Dedicated taxing districts have long been dismissed in urban economics circles as being inefficient- it’s time to revisit the CRA and the TDT. Right now, the baseball crowd is salivating over TDT funds to pay for a team that has a very good chance of not succeeding (see, the former president of the Miami  Marlins on the likely success of baseball in Orlando -the video is in the baseball thread). There are more important things to spend funds on, folks.

If they don’t modify the pork in these taxes, we’re well on our way to becoming Anaheim and saying “no” to everything.

Tourism is vital to Orlando but everyone needs to benefit from it, starting with those folks making the beds and manning the turnstiles.

Disney learned some valuable lessons in Anaheim and, thankfully, George Kalogridis knows what it’s like at the bottom. 

If all the moguls on I-Drive were like Harris Rosen and took care of their people, we wouldn’t need this discussion. Harris’ blind spot is that all the owners aren’t like him.

 

 

 

Edited December 19, 2019 by spenser1058

[aent]

10 hours ago, spenser1058 said:

The tourism industry has no problem paying their workers so little they qualify for food stamps, which is paid for by those of us outside the zone (heck, outside the state). Dedicated taxing districts have long been dismissed in urban economics circles as being inefficient- it’s time to revisit the CRA and the TDT.

It sounds like we mostly agree on the TDT, and I definitely wouldn't be against eliminating CRAs... just creating a special tax district and sending the money straight out of there is wrong. Tax everyone if its a general purpose tax.

[Dawn1000]

8 hours ago, aent said:

It sounds like we mostly agree on the TDT, and I definitely wouldn't be against eliminating CRAs... just creating a special tax district and sending the money straight out of there is wrong. Tax everyone if its a general purpose tax.

This CRA isn’t a special taxing district in the traditional sense (district pays an incremental tax specifically for the purpose of improvements in that area, funds are only used for that area) this is a special deal where the district KEEPS its property tax* rather than having it go  into the county’s general fund.  The money is used for improvements specifically in their area. 

Wouldn’t this be a nice deal for the rest of us?  We get our property taxes set aside and dictate how we want it used and only for the streets around our neighborhood? 

The CRA is in place until 2028.  Universal was(is) trying to get this special tax deal extended to 2040.  
 

To put the $125M for this 1.7 mile road in perspective, in 2018-19 Orange County’s entire budget was $130M for “new and expanded roadways, intersection improvements, storm water projects, sidewalks, street lights and other infrastructure.”
 

 

*(95% of all property tax generated in the CRA  above the value of the property in 1998, goes into a special pot controlled by Sea World, Universal, Rosen, etc) 

[AmIReal]

37 minutes ago, Dawn1000 said:

This CRA isn’t a special taxing district in the traditional sense (district pays an incremental tax specifically for the purpose of improvements in that area, funds are only used for that area) this is a special deal where the district KEEPS its property tax* rather than having it go  into the county’s general fund.  The money is used for improvements specifically in their area. 

Wouldn’t this be a nice deal for the rest of us?  We get our property taxes set aside and dictate how we want it used and only for the streets around our neighborhood? 

The CRA is in place until 2028.  Universal was(is) trying to get this special tax deal extended to 2040.  
 

To put the $125M for this 1.7 mile road in perspective, in 2018-19 Orange County’s entire budget was $130M for “new and expanded roadways, intersection improvements, storm water projects, sidewalks, street lights and other infrastructure.”
 

 

*(95% of all property tax generated in the CRA  above the value of the property in 1998, goes into a special pot controlled by Sea World, Universal, Rosen, etc) 

Good input. Thanks and Welcome aboard.

[aent]

5 hours ago, Dawn1000 said:

This CRA isn’t a special taxing district in the traditional sense (district pays an incremental tax specifically for the purpose of improvements in that area, funds are only used for that area) this is a special deal where the district KEEPS its property tax* rather than having it go  into the county’s general fund.  The money is used for improvements specifically in their area. 

I don't now the exact details of the CRA, but checking the millage rates on the tax collectors website makes it clear: they are paying extra taxes: 1.1458 mills to the improvement district, between their 3 special taxes. And what you're describing isn't unusual in the rest of the County as well, all the individual townships and cities are able to keep many funds to themselves and avoid putting it into the county general fund for services the township or city provides. The county usually responds by not spending the usual property tax revenue on items that they would usually fund with those taxes. And taking a quick look, the I-Drive district area has no public parks, for example. Completely business as usual from everything I can see.

I don't care of the CRA gets renewed personally, but it seems the district taxes should be removed if it does.

The TDT is the part that feels really wrong to the community and is the indefensible part.

 

5 hours ago, AmIReal said:

To put the $125M for this 1.7 mile road in perspective, in 2018-19 Orange County’s entire budget was $130M for “new and expanded roadways, intersection improvements, storm water projects, sidewalks, street lights and other infrastructure.”

Does the total budget of $130M include the other impact fee credits given to the other developers who've done the same thing Universal is doing? Cause the vast majority of new roadways and even a good number of expansions are done by developers, and in exchange for that, they usually always get impact fee credits for the value of the project they construct. I could be wrong as I haven't looked up the individual project, but typically, say, the completely new (in the last few years) 6 lane Lake Nona Blvd would be constructed  by Tavistock, and they'd receive a credit for the value of the road they built. I have a feeling all the projects like that aren't included in that number. On top of that number also not including city roadways, state roadways, or CFX roadways. The creation of new county roads are extremely rare, so that perspective just doesn't seem fair. To put that in real perspective, typically (not always, but for the major projects) if the county fully funds a roadway project from scratch or if they maintain a major roadway, they assign it a county road number. Here's a list of County Roads: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_county_roads_in_Orange_County,_Florida

Then if you look at this list, they didn't even build most of them: most were given to them by the state as the state decided to give up maintenance of them. Why's there so few? Because the county building a road is usually a last resort: they don't want to build them in any city limits, they want to make developers build them if they can, and then if there is a way to get it to be a SR, that saves the county from having to maintain that too... and then we have CFX for our highways.

[jack]

On 12/20/2019 at 3:37 PM, aent said:

I don't now the exact details of the CRA, but checking the millage rates on the tax collectors website makes it clear: they are paying extra taxes: 1.1458 mills to the improvement district, between their 3 special taxes. And what you're describing isn't unusual in the rest of the County as well, all the individual townships and cities are able to keep many funds to themselves and avoid putting it into the county general fund for services the township or city provides. The county usually responds by not spending the usual property tax revenue on items that they would usually fund with those taxes. And taking a quick look, the I-Drive district area has no public parks, for example. Completely business as usual from everything I can see.

I don't care of the CRA gets renewed personally, but it seems the district taxes should be removed if it does.

The TDT is the part that feels really wrong to the community and is the indefensible part.

 

Does the total budget of $130M include the other impact fee credits given to the other developers who've done the same thing Universal is doing? Cause the vast majority of new roadways and even a good number of expansions are done by developers, and in exchange for that, they usually always get impact fee credits for the value of the project they construct. I could be wrong as I haven't looked up the individual project, but typically, say, the completely new (in the last few years) 6 lane Lake Nona Blvd would be constructed  by Tavistock, and they'd receive a credit for the value of the road they built. I have a feeling all the projects like that aren't included in that number. On top of that number also not including city roadways, state roadways, or CFX roadways. The creation of new county roads are extremely rare, so that perspective just doesn't seem fair. To put that in real perspective, typically (not always, but for the major projects) if the county fully funds a roadway project from scratch or if they maintain a major roadway, they assign it a county road number. Here's a list of County Roads: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_county_roads_in_Orange_County,_Florida

Then if you look at this list, they didn't even build most of them: most were given to them by the state as the state decided to give up maintenance of them. Why's there so few? Because the county building a road is usually a last resort: they don't want to build them in any city limits, they want to make developers build them if they can, and then if there is a way to get it to be a SR, that saves the county from having to maintain that too... and then we have CFX for our highways.

You can have a CRA and a special taxing district.  They are not mutually exclusive. For example, downtown Orlando has a special taxing district, the DDB. It also has a CRA and the two are not really related.  The DDB pays the CRA like Orlando and Orange County. 

[aent]

29 minutes ago, jack said:

You can have a CRA and a special taxing district.  They are not mutually exclusive. For example, downtown Orlando has a special taxing district, the DDB. It also has a CRA and the two are not really related.  The DDB pays the CRA like Orlando and Orange County. 

Yes, but isn't the CRA's funding from the special taxing district?

[jack]

Yes. I personally do not agree with it but it does come from all taxing authorities in the district. 

[aent]

11 hours ago, jack said:

Yes. I personally do not agree with it but it does come from all taxing authorities in the district. 

Hey, I didn't say I agreed with any of it either... just that it felt even more wrong to have them in a special higher tax district which purpose was to improve the specific area and then take the money out of that into general revenue streams. Just like I wouldn't agreed with the downtown district money going to fund some rural roadway. If they make these special tax districts, the least they can do is keep the money within it.