Good time for takin’ the bacon

Home

Around Kissimmee

Other Sun Publications

FREE DELIVERY!
Get Free Delivery! Request your Osceola News Gazette Today.

Login Form

2013 Osceola Health

2013 Sexual Predator Sexual Offender List sexualpredatorcover13

Windows on the Classroom March 2013

School Calendar
2012-2013

View our other Special Sections

Good time for takin’ the bacon

Opinions

Thursday, 07 January 2010 01:11

Recently, our county, city and state elected officials brought home promises for a good-sized portion of bacon in these stressing economic times.
Florida Department of Transportation officials at a recent meeting in Kissimmee said the agency would focus on Osceola County this year to help it secure state and federal funding for two major and two lesser projects. That commitment is welcome news and is overdue.
Officials said the lack of funds from the state gasoline tax had hampered road building efforts in the past, but with construction costs either falling or stabilizing, and with steady gas tax revenues now, those previously stalled projects are back in the works.
Improvements to Hoagland Boulevard in Kissimmee in the area of the airport could begin as soon as July 2011, and the state could cover about $15 million of the construction costs with the help of federal stimulus dollars. Hoagland Boulevard improvements would help overall efforts to improve distressed areas along West U.S. Highway 192.
In St. Cloud, U.S. Highway 192 improvements from Aeronautical Boulevard to Budinger Avenue would help alleviate traffic congestion. Approximately $15.5 million in funding would be made available for this project.
The other two projects in the program are the Kissimmee Trail Bridge, from north of U.S. Highway 192 to Columbia Avenue, and a county advanced traffic management system center. These projects would involve $5.4 million and $4 million of funding, respectively.
But getting our projects on the transportation department’s five-year work program must have taken some convincing and arm-twisting. We offer kudos to state Rep. Mike Horner, who serves as the vice chair for the House Transportation and Economic Development Appropriations Committee. We also offer kudos to our elected officials appointed to Metroplan Orlando, including County Commissioner John Quiñones, who chaired the agency board of directors last year, County Commissioner Brandon Arrington and Kissimmee Mayor Jim Swan.
While we praise these elected officials, we urge them to continue to seek our fair share of state transportation dollars and our fair share of the federal stimulus savings realized due to lower than expected bids on the first round of stimulus-funded road contracts.