Poinciana residents and environmentalists remain conflicted over a proposed $2.5 billion expressway that promises to revolutionize Osceola County travel at the price of slicing through a wildlife corridor.
Tuesday’s public hearing at Liberty High School marked one of the final steps before the Central Florida Expressway Authority’s governing board decides the fate of the Southport Connector project, which if approved would to extend from the Poinciana Parkway to Pleasant Hill Road and continue east to Florida’s Turnpike.
Residents who spoke at the hearing, the first of three, remained skeptical the 15-mile tolled expressway will actually be the solution to some of the worst commute times in the nation.
Traffic along Cypress Parkway, the 4.8-mile stretch of road at the center of residents’ concerns, increased by 25% since 2019. The road agency estimates it currently carries 47,000 cars every day and as Osceola and neighboring Polk counties are expected to continue to grow so is the traffic.
CFX projects by 2050 Osceola County will grow another 37%, forcing Cypress Parkway to hold 66,000 vehicles a day if the Southport Connector is not built. If the project is built, the road agency projects a reduction in daily vehicles on Cypress Parkway in 2050 to 56,000.
“The project will address ongoing growth in population and employment within the region,” Mary Brooks, public involvement coordinator for CFX, told the more than 50 residents who came to the hearing. “There are multiple planned and permitted developments within and adjacent to the study area.”
But Longtime Poinciana resident Mike Lella questioned the benefit to local drivers. Despite the improvements to local roads included in the project, like expanding Cypress Parkway to six lanes and adding more turning lanes, Lella worries it won’t be enough.
“The apprehension is when you go across Cypress Parkway with the toll road, if we need any kind of alternate changes, all the land is being taken up by the expressway,” Lella said. “We can’t use the parkway to go from one end of Poinciana to the other if you look at the entrance and exit ramps.”
Conservation experts also raised concerns, but over a different segment of the project.
The route features 21 bridges on an 11.8-mile stretch of expressway east of Pleasant Hill Road, a compromise with environmentalists who hoped to have the entire segment elevated so wildlife could cross underneath.
This section of the route is nestled within the Florida Wildlife Corridor, an 18-million-acre expanse of state land that provides habitat for many fragile plants and animals. The road agency chose the route that offered the second highest number of bridge structures. But the environmental nonprofit Sierra Club believes it’s not enough and worry the project will entice more development in the area.
Fred Milch of the Sierra Club said the land that once was wetlands is now the master planned community of Waterlin and other developments that will bring thousands of homes south of Lake Toho. The expressway may bring more developments that repeat the pattern he said.
But other residents are eager for the project to bring congestion relief. Poinciana resident Henry Vernon said he wants to know how long the expressway will take to be built and whether funding is already in place.
“I’m 80 years old,” Vernon said. “I want to see it done.”
CFX says funding is not an issue, as the agency will use tolls to repay any bonds sold to finance the initial road construction, spokesman Brian Hutchings said in an email.
“Tolls revenues pay for the entire system, reinvested into local projects in the Central Florida region,” Hutchings said. “That translates to an estimated $4 billion in locally planned projects and improvements through 2030.”
