Plans for road through Bithlo trigger frustration, confusion

Competing plans to build a 7-mile toll road through Bithlo are causing frustration among residents and dismay with some transportation experts.

The road, which would connect the region’s heavily used State Road 408 with State Road 520 in east Orange County, is from a long-standing plan to provide additional expressway between the Orlando area and Interstate 95 along the east coast.

“Excuse me, but this is a pissing contest between government agencies,” said Fred Dietrich, a retired Orange County teacher and owner of the Flying D Ranch in south Bithlo at the Econlockhatchee River.

Dietrich fears the connector road may take a chunk of ranch owned by his family for more than 70 years. Partly retired and persistent, he said he has implored local officials and legislators for clarity.

Harry Barley, director of MetroPlan Orlando, a regional transportation planner, said he has been urging local officials to help resolve discord from the separate efforts of the Florida Department of Transportation and the Central Florida Expressway Authority.

“It’s awkward in terms of the public’s understanding of things,” Barley said. “We don’t need two projects.”

The prospect of two agencies spending millions of public dollars each to develop a road concept is unusual. The standard practice is for a single agency to consider multiple alternatives. As it stands, there is no clear route for determining which agency will prevail.

As the region’s chief tollroad operator, the expressway authority is further along than the state in formulating a plan for the Bithlo highway.

The authority will have a public meeting today from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at East River High School, 650 East River Falcons Way in Bithlo.

Spokesman Brian Hutchings said the meeting will further clarify his agency’s development of a concept for a highway, one that involved previous presentations to the public, evolution of a route and determination of a potential price tag.

That planning effort alone cost the toll-funded authority $3.2 million.

The authority’s staff is recommending a route that would start at S.R. 408, dip south and run parallel with S.R. 50, and then dive south of East River High School along the south side of Bithlo.

It would tie into State Road 50 near its intersection with S.R. 520.

Such a road would have an estimated “all-in” cost of $678 million, Hutchings said.

Later this year, the authority may give approval to the concept but is not expected to consider whether to begin design or construction work, Hutchings said.

The authority, Hutchings said, would wait on the state to formulate its plan.

The expressway authority had long pursued a route through Bithlo and as recently as a few years ago was looking at building the road along S.R. 50.

But the state Department of Transportation would not grant the expressway authority access to S.R. 50. The state department then went on to declare its own interest in aligning a new toll road along S.R. 50.

Responding to the state’s move, the authority decided to pursue an alternative route — the 7-mile segment along the south side of Bithlo — describing the renewed effort as a backup option in case the state doesn’t follow through.

On May 10, the state Department of Transportation will have a public meeting at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel at 12125 High Tech Ave., near University of Central Florida. Department officials will take comments on the proposal to build toll lanes along S.R. 50.

A key concern of Bithlo residents is whether the state would elevate its toll road or build it at ground level along S.R. 50 and largely sever the community.

That question is not addressed on the department’s website, nor would the department return calls for comment.

Neither agency attempts to clarify on its website how the planning efforts relate to each other.