State-of-the-art toll road: Florida's new Suncoast Parkway is designed for minimum impact on the environment and maximum use by nonmotorized traffic

Public Roads, Sept-Oct, 2003 by Raymond A. Ashe, Max D. Crumit, Kevin M. Hoeflich

Leading the procession during the opening day ceremonies for Florida's new Suncoast Parkway in February 2001 was a lemon-yellow Model A truck built in 1929. On each of the antique cab doors was a neatly stenciled "DOT 1," standing for the Florida Department of Transportation. The restored truck, its chrome headlights and front bumper gleaming brightly in the Florida sun, was a shining symbol of the past tiding proudly on a roadway planned with maximum environmental sensitivity for the transportation needs of the future.

The highway is a new-alignment, 68-kilometer (42-mile) toll road running north-south from the Tampa-St. Petersburg metropolitan area. The tollway reflects careful environmental planning in every aspect, from project management to roadway design. A state-of-the-art commitment to minimize environmental impact is reflected by the mitigation efforts: preservation of 8,100 hectares (20,000 acres) of conservation land and a long bicycle trail that parallels the parkway.

Covered in Superpave[TM]--a new design system used to produce materials that will stand up better to traffic loads and the environment to provide for long life--and designed to accommodate the Florida DOT's recently developed SunPass[R] system for electronic toll collection, Florida's new $517-million Suncoast Parkway resulted from a highly successful partnering process. The partnership facilitated the applications for construction permits, developed an impact-mitigation strategy that meets or exceeds even the most stringent expectations, and created an integrated design protocol that incorporates the first public biking trail in the State built along a major limited-access highway corridor.

The Need

The parkway has been high on the list of transportation needs in the Tampa-St. Petersburg region since at least the mid-1970s, when continued population growth and traffic congestion first was noted in planning studies. Currently, the parkway is expected to carry 120,000 vehicles per day by 2010, the majority generated by the Tampa-St. Petersburg metropolitan area.

Tampa-St. Petersburg, a dynamic growth center whose regional economy shows no signs of diminishing, is home to three international deepwater ports and three international airports. The Port of Tampa is the seventh largest in the Nation, conveying more tonnage than all other Florida ports combined. Tampa International Airport has been identified as the third fastest-growing airport in the country.

A Mandate for the Future

Any transportation agency attempting to build a considerable length of new-alignment highway anywhere in the Nation is likely to encounter environmental sensitivities along the way. In this case, multiple sets of environmental challenges emerged when Florida's toll agency proposed building limited-access roadway requiring a 122-meter (400-foot) right-of-way through three Florida counties: Hillsborough, Pasco, and Hernando, in order south to north. Locals frequently refer to the area as "The Nature Coast."

The Florida DOT conducted the first corridor and environmental studies in 1988 and presented a preferred alignment for the proposed Suncoast Parkway in 1992 at a series of public hearings. The route would run through a variety of landscapes that include urban and suburban areas, sparsely inhabited open laud, and conservation zones.

The State's toll agency, the Florida DOT Turnpike Enterprise, operates as an entity within the Florida DOT and was established in 1957 to build highways by issuing public bonds and collecting tolls to contribute to their repayment. The toll agency currently manages nearly 805 kilometers (500 miles) of roadway throughout the State. Turnpike Enterprise officials and the in-house consultant's staff managed the design of the Suncoast Parkway project collaboratively, with help from consultants representing a variety of disciplines. Collaboration among all participants and stakeholders was critical to the project's significant environmental achievements.

The timing of the project also was a major factor. Construction that precedes major regional development by several years naturally reaps the benefit of relatively stable prices for land acquisition. At the same time, Florida law demands that all highways built by the toll agency pass a revenue-projection test to meet repayment expectations in the 15 years "after construction.

Proposing a Partnership

In the earliest stages, the designers made two significant decisions. The first was to divide the proposed highway into six contiguous segments so that six individual consultants could be assigned the design work for each segment, thereby working concurrently and more expeditiously. The second decision was to create an extended partnership to address the project's environmental aspects. To maintain a uniform approach, a single environmental consultant coordinated all permitting efforts with the partnership.

Borrowing from the world of construction contracting, project managers decided on a form of partnering that would involve all those with a stake in the environmental issues. The Florida DOT had never attempted this kind of partnering process before. To help ensure success, the Turnpike Enterprise hired a local consulting from to oversee the environmental planning and permitting. The project coordinator, John Post, currently is the environmental administrator with the Turnpike Enterprise and is a former employee of the Southwest Florida Water Management District, a State agency with jurisdiction over the Parkway project.