Orlando beltway nearing end of long journey to completion
But it’s still not done — more roadwork lies ahead
Under construction for more than 30 years, the beltway consists of about 111 miles of state roads 417 and 429, which are tolled expressways, and a short length of Interstate 4.
The most monumental and prolonged highway undertaking ever in Central Florida has to be the beltway around Orlando, a priority from as far back as the Korean War, and it still isn’t done.
“First proposed as the outer-belt route in 1950, a bypass around Orlando was envisioned as a 35-mile roadway estimated to cost $4 million,” said Mimi Lamaute, Central Florida Expressway Authority recording secretary, presenting a history of the project to the agency in December.
Her presentation was meant to give perspective for the billions of dollars in projects yet to come at the expressway authority, the region’s builder and operator of toll roads for Orange, Seminole, Osceola, Lake and Brevard counties, and the state’s second-largest toll agency behind the Florida Department of Transportation.
Many road projects proceed smoothly, including repaving and widening jobs. Others, especially proposals for new roads, such as the beltway and even a short stub of toll road at Sanford’s airport, seem to progress in inches. Just putting more law enforcement on Central Florida toll roads has been a saga.
“It’s amazing how much work it takes,” Lamaute said, referring to the successive delays, detours, funding and sometimes politically byzantine challenges of bringing the Orlando beltway to life.
The final piece of the beltway, a 25-mile project called the Wekiva Parkway that spans the Wekiva River between Lake and Seminole counties, is scheduled for completion and use by motorists in 2023.
When done, Orlando’s beltway will be a far bigger
beast than the relatively modest outer-belt route envisioned 71 years ago.
Under construction for more than 30 years, the beltway consists of about 111 miles of state roads 417 and 429, which are tolled expressways, and a short length of Interstate 4. Ownership is split between the Central Florida Expressway authority and the Florida Department of Transportation.
The expressway authority owns 63 miles of beltway, resulting from five, major projects going back to the 1980s, and with price tags that — not adjusted for inflation — add up to more than $850 million.
The Department of Transportation was not able to provide figures for its share of the beltway.
The true, inflation-adjusted cost of the beltway is in the billions of dollars, judging from the final section, the $1.6 billion Wekiva Parkway, at $64 million per mile on average.
Road officials will celebrate the completion of the Wekiva Parkway, which is part of S.R. 429 and stretches from west of the Wekiva River in Lake County to Interstate 4 near Sanford in Seminole County. When that happens, the region will join the likes of Jacksonville, Charlotte and Atlanta, all with beltways.
“It’s going to be a big day for our region,” said Lake County Commissioner Sean Parks, who will chair the expressway authority board in 2022.
“Growing up as a native to this area in the 1980s, that was something that we talked about, but there was waiting and waiting for the plans to get put in place, waiting for it to get funded,” Parks said.
“We knew we had to have a beltway or similar infrastructure to grow economically, to move people around and to serve the tourism industry,” Parks said. “Slowly but surely it came along.”
Lamaute’s oral history was context for other project timelines at the expressway authority. The agency is drawing up conceptional plans for work through 2045 and is asking for public comment in an online survey at cfxway.com/master-plan/ through the end of the year.
It’s not clear what travel a quarter-century from now will look like, and whether vehicles will need human drivers or even whether they will depend on highways or airways.
A German company, Lilium GmbH, is working with the city of Orlando and Lake Nona’s developer, Tavistock Group, to build a base at Lake Nona for electrically powered, flying taxicabs.
Along with Lamaute’s beltway presentation, agency staff also highlighted two other tasks that underscored how protracted and frustrating even relatively modest transportation goals can be, including one essential to saving lives.
For several years, the expressway authority has sought state approval to bring more Florida Highway Patrol troopers to the agency’s system of more than 125 miles of toll roads.
The agency now has eight, full-time troopers working those toll roads. The agency, using toll revenues, is covering the salaries, vehicles and other expenses of that eight-member troop, which is about $1 million annually thanks to a contract in place for two decades.
The expressway authority, which refers to itself as CFX, would pay another $1 million annually to underwrite another eight troopers.
But the Florida Highway
Patrol has difficulty with its low salaries in filling its own ranks. Of nearly 2,000 trooper positions statewide, more than 200 are vacant.
State leaders repeatedly have denied the expressway authority’s various tactics to put more troopers on Central Florida toll roads.
Currently, the authority is lobbying for passage of an appropriation bill making its way through the Florida House. The need is growing more urgent, according to the agency.
“Vehicle miles traveled on CFX expressway toll roads have more than doubled since 2001 … from over 1.1 billion to 2.9 billion miles traveled,” states one of the bill’s explainer documents.
“During the same timeframe, the number of vehicle accidents has tripled, from under 1,000 in 2001 to more than 3,000 annually and growing,” the document states.
State Rep. Fred Hawkins, a Republican from St. Cloud and a former Osceola County commissioner and chairman of the expressway authority, filed the bill.
“We are on a good track for it to get through,” Hawkins said. “I think the one hold-back on this is that FHP is down in officers. So asking to double our fleet or force is a big ask just because of the lack of officers and new hires coming in.”
One other potential expressway authority project that has floated around in concept for a few decades is a possible link between Sanford Orlando International Airport and a section of the Orlando beltway, a piece of State Road 417 owned and operated by the Florida Department of Transportation.
The airport is an economic hub for Seminole County and is being promoted as an alternative to Orlando International Airport for low-cost flights delivering domestic and international travelers headed to the region’s attractions.
In October, Seminole County commissioners agreed to ask the Central Florida Expressway Authority to consider building a tolled, expressway of less than 2 miles from S.R. 417 to the airport.
The surface roads between S.R. 417 and the airport are a mess, the commissioners said in a letter to the expressway authority, which in December agreed to preliminary investigation of such a road.
“During the heaviest morning and afternoon peak demand travel periods, getting into and out of the airport is not an easy feat,” states the letter, signed by the board of commissioners chairman, Lee Constantine.
Constantine said the request is meant to avoid the legendary controversy in Orange County of past decades involving failed proposals to build an expressway from downtown Orlando to Orlando International Airport.
“That’s exactly what this is about,” Constantine said. “It’s extremely important that we reserve the ability, to get it on the five-year plan, to make sure that we have the opportunity to have a direct connect from the expressway to the airport.”
There’s more than a fiveyear plan to consider, said another Seminole commissioner, Jay Zembower.
“We have to understand there are lands that are vacant between the 417 and the airport, some of which Seminole County has jurisdiction over and others the city of Sanford has jurisdiction over,” Zembower said.
“We don’t want to approve some kind of development on a vacant piece of property if it ultimately is going to be taken for right-of-way to get to the airport,” he said.