New highway 331 bridge in Walton County

U.S. 331 widening stalls | private, widening, withdrawn - Local News - WaltonSun.com

Company withdraws proposal; commissioners want more time for new bids


April 22, 2009 - 5:25 PM
By KIMBERLY WHITE Northwest Florida Daily News
A private company has withdrawn a proposal to form a public-private partnership to widen part of U.S. Highway 331.

In an April 10 letter to the Northwest Florida Transportation Corridor Authority, Moving U.S. 331 Forward stated that it was withdrawing the unsolicited proposal it had submitted in February to partner with the Corridor Authority to widen U.S. 331 from the south end of the Clyde B. Wells Bridge to State Road 20.

At the time, Walton County commissioners were asked to give the Corridor Authority permission to begin advertising the project to obtain competing bids. But those bids would have had to be submitted within 60 days, and the commissioners said that was not enough time.

Commission Chairwoman Sara Comander previously said commissioners wanted to expand the time frame because "60 days for a company to come up with a colossal proposal for something like this is nearly impossible unless you already have one drafted."

Last month, commissioners voted to send a letter to the Corridor Authority asking that the bidding window be expanded to six months. It also asked the Legislature to prohibit tolling of existing roads and to form a Walton County bridge authority.

"We understand there seems to be an openness to explore the opportunity by Walton County," the letter from Moving U.S. 331 Forward reads, "but the County requested an advertisement period of 120 days and had concerns with changing the statutory authority of the NWFTCA (the Corridor Authority) to allow the Authority to move forward with the project.

"These concerns make the decision to withdraw, while difficult, the best course of action to allow this idea to be further explored," the letter states.

The letter adds that widening the highway has been one of Walton County's top priorities for years and that the county is not likely to receive enough local, state or federal funding anytime soon to help pay for a project, which is estimated to cost more than $300 million.

"The County Commission passed a resolution to make it real clear that they weren't interested in a public-private partnership for that bridge," Randall McElheney, chairman of the Corridor Authority, said Tuesday. "We're not interested in doing that if the commission doesn't want us to."

The proposal raised the hackles of many residents, who believed if it was accepted, they would have to pay a toll to cross the bridge.

Local conservationist M.C. Davis urged the commissioners not to make a hasty decision and spend more time investigating Moving U.S. 331 Forward. He called the proposal "an ambush" and said the county's master plan only allowed for improvements on the existing bridge, which was built with taxpayer money.

He also said the tolls would have been prohibitive for commuters who live north of Choctawhatchee Bay and who already must pay $5 for a round trip across the Mid-Bay Bridge.

"The proposal came as a complete surprise to the county and the citizens, and therefore (the commissioners) did the right thing," Davis said Monday.

Moving U.S. 331 Forward was founded by Denver Stutler, a former secretary for the Florida Department of Transportation, and Lowell Clary, an assistant secretary.

U.S. 331 widening stalls | private, widening, withdrawn - Local News - WaltonSun.com

Another good example of how concerned citizens can affect change...when they stand up and make their voices heard.

Or maybe that tough grand jury seated in Tallahassee right now has those who might want to try some flim flam business waiting until their term runs out.

that too! A lot of people worked on this though.

This good news may be a double edged sword. Although it's obviously a good thing to keep the Wells bridge toll free, we will have to pay for the widening somehow, or expanding 331 will have have been in vain. Maybe some shovel ready stimulus is headed our way.

Another good example of how concerned citizens can affect change...when they stand up and make their voices heard.

What changed? We still have no bridge and seemed to have succeeded running off the only people that just wanted to talk about a solution. It would seem to me to have been a better idea to have least heard what they had to say before soundly rejecting them. Instead everyone gave into fear, started a bunch or rumors, and the only thing changed was that we are no longer moving forward.

This good news may be a double edged sword. Although it's obviously a good thing to keep the Wells bridge toll free, we will have to pay for the widening somehow, or expanding 331 will have have been in vain. Maybe some shovel ready stimulus is headed our way.

None is currently in the stimulus for the bridge unless FDOT gets creative with their allocations. The criteria isn't just shovel ready as the funds are supposed to be used for projects that can be completed and their will not be enough funds available for that. As a matter of fact, the stimulus list was reported in a recent article, and Walton County's share was less than 2 million (see my earlier post on 4/4 below).

On another front, Miller has requested $2 million in FY 10 for the bridge widening project. The senators have not yet made their appropriation requests known yet and won't until later in May. This is the first step out of about six. If approved these funds will be matched up with the monies posted by Kurt below.

A third opportunity is through the reauthorization of the Highway Transportation Bill (previously named SAFETEA-LU) that is being worked on this year and comes around every 5 or 6 years. I don't have access to know if they requested this project be included, but I am pretty sure their lobbyists would have made them aware of this opportunity. If a project is authorized in this bill, it would receive appropriations in subsequent fiscal years.

The final opportunity is that the state utilize the funding it receives from the federal government to build the project. This is the "normal" process that many are aware of regarding the TPO lists etc. and also the one where the state says there isn't enough money.

Hope this helps identify what opportunities exist via the federal appropriations side.

What changed? We still have no bridge and seemed to have succeeded running off the only people that just wanted to talk about a solution. It would seem to me to have been a better idea to have least heard what they had to say before soundly rejecting them. Instead everyone gave into fear, started a bunch or rumors, and the only thing changed was that we are no longer moving forward.

Did you attend the community meeting?

JohnR et al. more stimulus stuff for you.

Here is a link to the Florida Recovery Site's proposed list of local surface transportation stimulus projects with their criteria.

http://flarecovery.com/_resources/documents/fdot-local-surface-transportation-projects-04-15-09.pdf

The portion for Walton County is listed on page 5 of 12. It includes a pedestrian bridge at Redfish Lake (569.9K), sidewalks in DFS (141.1k and 110.3k) and Freeport (110k), and resurfacing of a portion of west Hwy 30A (925.6k) for the grand total of approx 1.857 million.

Here is the state level surface transportation stimulus projects which has no Walton County projects:

http://flarecovery.com/_resources/documents/fdot-hwys-state-flexible-list-4-15-09.pdf

Finally, here is the overall documents site in case you want to dive into the meat of Florida's approach. It's got a fairly good amount of data compared to other states I am aware of...

Documents - The Florida Office of Economic Recovery

see updates on US 331 construction progress

U.S. 331 Improvement Project - Walton County, FL

New website created to keep the public informed of the Hwy 331 road expansion, with updates, such as lane closures, project photos, FAQ, etc.

I like this informative way of communicating from the gov't to the public. The PCB airport has done the same and I think it is great.

U.S. 331 Improvement Project - Walton County, FL

New website created to keep the public informed of the Hwy 331 road expansion, with updates, such as lane closures, project photos, FAQ, etc.

I like this informative way of communicating from the gov't to the public. The PCB airport has done the same and I think it is great.

I agree. I posted the link earlier in the thread. A person from the public relations firm who was hired to keep the public updated contacted me about ways we could help. I told her to feel free to come on and answer questions and give us updates and she liked the idea but had to get it cleared.

Did you attend the community meeting?

The community meeting held by MC Davis that was against the project with undisclosed details? The people making the proposal never had a meeting that I was aware of.