Commissioners supportive of I-75 toll project

The Southwest Florida Expressway Authority on Tuesday continued rolling at top speed toward the widening of Interstate 75 to 10 lanes, though at least one Lee County commissioner flashed a caution light.

Commissioners said they’ll lend as much as $775,000 to the new authority, matching an expected contribution from their Collier County counterparts. The new authority is designed to add four toll express lanes to I-75 along its entire length in both counties.

Commissioner Bob Janes, however, said some of what he has heard from the authority’s first two meetings has given him pause. He said he doesn’t mind considering the authority request when commissioners make budget decisions later this summer, but now is too soon.

“But I hope in the meantime we have time for an in-depth discussion,” he said. “This is an immensely expensive prospect.”

The project’s early estimates came in at around $500 million to build the lanes. It was pegged to be closer to $1 billion at the first authority board meeting in May. In June, when the authority heard from Florida Turnpike Enterprise, the state’s toll road agency, the cost was close to $1.8 billion when adjusted for inflation over a phased construction schedule.

The agency also said toll revenues could be expected to cover only about 40 percent of that cost.

“We’ve got to examine where we’re going,” Janes said.

Authority Chairman Bill Barton told commissioners the expressway board believes there’s a small window of opportunity, a time during which they might still get the additional four lanes tacked onto the state’s $470 million project that will widen I-75 to six lanes. That job is expected to get under way in 2007. The authority even advanced the possibility of delaying the state project to combine it with the toll lanes, a prospect state officials say they aren’t considering.

Barton told commissioners Tuesday that the authority believes it can save $200 million to $250 million by doing the jobs simultaneously. To do it, he said, they must move quickly.

“The window is relatively small, and it’s going to take a yeoman’s effort,” he said.

The authority board would like to start advertising for an executive director in July, he said, with an eye toward hiring one when the counties make the money available as the fiscal year begins Oct. 1. The next step would be a detailed traffic and revenue study, a requirement of bonding companies who’d finance the authority project.

“The traffic and revenue study is going to show go or no-go,” Barton said.

Commissioner John Albion, the commission representative on the new authority, said he isn’t discouraged by the Turnpike Enterprise report. He said the authority needs the far more detailed traffic and revenue study.

“It’s important the board consider the fact we don’t know what we have until we have that information,” he said. “I was certainly not dismayed by what the turnpike folks had to say.”

Barton said he’s also considering an approach that adds four lanes now, combining the state project with the authority to produce eight interstate lanes. Two of the new lanes would be free, he said, and the other two toll.

That’s because with six free lanes and four toll lanes fewer motorists would use the toll lanes, pushing toll revenue further into the distant future.

Commissioners said they had all expected to pay the early operating costs when they supported state legislation to create it. They’ll consider the $775,000 loan during budget hearings this summer.