Independent study concludes road funds way short of future needs
Much has
been written about the road to success.
But these days, roads of any kind are in
great demand and they come at an ever-increasing
cost. In Volusia County, an area
that has experienced decades of growth, the
demand for roads never has been greater
and the money to address those needs falls
far short, according to an independent study
done by the area’s higher education institutions.
While Volusia County Government has a Five-Year Road Program,
the cost of implementing the program has affected the ability
to keep up with demand for new roads or major improvements
to existing roads. Without new sources of funding, important elements
of the program will be delayed or postponed indefinitely,
County Manager Jim Dinneen has told the Volusia County Council.
“Roads are the lifeblood of the community,” said Maryam
Ghyabi, president of Ghyabi&Associates, an Ormond Beach-based
transportation, engineering, civil engineering and planning firm.
She
also chairs the Volusia County Expressway Authority. “Roads serve
everyone—retirees, visitors, business people, students, emergency
responders, hurricane evacuees – everyone depends on our network
of roads. Delaying or deleting projects may be necessary today, but
that adds to the inevitable cost of catching up tomorrow. And if we
don’t catch up, there will be a chilling effect on many essential
aspects of life here.”
The Volusia County Council is well aware of the importance of
keeping up with roads, something that’s becoming increasingly
difficult
in the wake of escalating construction costs, an anemic
economy and revenue constraints. In an effort to document or dispute
the county administration’s predictions that road construction
funding is drying up, the County Council last year commissioned
an independent study group to analyze the situation and present its
findings and recommendations. That group is a team of researchers
working under the direction of the Volusia-Flagler Higher Education
Consortium (VFHEC).
Founded in 2000, VFHEC is a charter membership organization
composed of Bethune-Cookman University, Daytona State College,
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Stetson University, and the
University of Central Florida.
“The county has done a great job with its road program over the
past 30 years,” said Dr. Bob Williams of Daytona State College. “But
due to the confluence of economic and demographic circumstances,
the community is heading toward a crisis in funding the program.
The VFHEC was tapped as an independent third party to
study the situation in-depth, judge the validity of prior research
and
make recommendations regarding how to proceed.”
The five colleges and universities of the VFHEC each conducted
elements of the overall study, “Volusia County’s Transportation
Challenges,” which was presented to Volusia County Council in June.
The study concludes that Volusia County Government has done
a good job in providing a road infrastructure. This conclusion is
based on citizen surveys and VEHICLE research. But the study also
found that people are beginning to believe that traffic congestion
is
becoming a problem and the need for road expansion is inevitable.
While road construction was accelerated in recent years, thanks
to a county bond issue that made funds immediately available, current
funding mechanisms will not meet future needs, the study
finds.
As it stands,
Volusia County’s Road Program
includes new road construction, road improvements, sidewalk
construction and dirt road paving. Sidewalk construction is
scheduled
throughout the county and varies from a tenth of a mile to more
than three miles. Efforts to reduce the number of dirt roads in the
county include more than 100 roads to be paved under the program.
More than 100 individual road projects are also on the plan.
According to Dinneen, much of this program is in jeopardy
unless new sources of funding are identified.
Recommendations by the VFHEC include the development of
a communitywide funding strategy and city/county consensus on
transportation priorities.
Meanwhile, VFHEC identified some tactics that could provide
some relief in the near term. It called for a modified countywide
traffic management
system that spans the municipalities to make optimal
use of existing roads; coordination of traffic signals to integrate
traffic flow within municipalities; intersection improvement to
facilitate more efficient right-hand turns; and optimization of
commercial
traffic.
Additional information on the research can be found on the
Consortium's
website at www.vfhec.org.
