LAKELAND— Most kids miss school because they're sick, have a family emergency or are being whisked off to someplace like Disney World for a surprise vacation with their parents.
Cathryn Goble Smith's son has missed school because of traffic.
Twice now, Smith has had to keep her son home from school because I-4 was shut down and she was facing a one-way, two-and-a-half-hour commute.
"When we started taking him to school in 2020, we could get there in 35 to 40 minutes. Now, it takes an hour and a half. Yesterday, it took me two hours because there was an accident on I-4, which happens a lot," Smith, 40, said. "This part of I-4 that I'm on right now, from Exit 44 to Exit 62, is just blocked, like 95% of the time. I mean, it's just like crawling, like all the time."
Traffic conditions have worsened over the years, exacerbated by unprecedented growth in the area that'smostly driven by immigration into the state.
In December, Polk County Commissioner George Lindsey warned his fellow elected officials that serve on the Polk Transportation Planning Organization board that the future holds further frustration.
"The fact of the matter is, the traffic experience we have today is as good as it will ever get. It will never be as good as it is right now, today. And tomorrow, it will be worse," Lindsey said. "Until the business community collectively, as the public and all our members that are represented here, come together with that plan, then every 90 days when we meet here, we're just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic."
By the way:Wildlife crossing in Polk County will be 1st for I-4 between Tampa, Orlando
At the county level alone, there are 20 road projects totaling $1.2 billion in needed investments that sit unfunded. And because usual funding sources— namely, the gas tax—are "archaic," elected officials need to chart new ways to fund mass transit, pave new roads, widen existing roads and improve safety as thousands continue to pour into the county. A 1-cent sales tax solution has been floated— a proposal that was swiftly rejected by voters less than 10 years ago.
Lindsey has pushed for considering the sales tax at a few public meetings since December.
Lindsey said that until there is a "substantial, dedicated funding source" for transportation needs, elected officials are "simply managing the rate of decline."
"The best we could ever hope for, if we had a dedicated funding source, would be to not get any further behind," Lindsey said."We're never going to get in front of it."
Until that solution is reached— and the earliest a sales tax could land on the ballot is 2024— residents like Smith will continue to spend hours behind the wheel.
"It's really frustrating," Smith said. "I feel like I can't go anywhere right now."
Hours on the road: The state of traffic
Last August, a high school student from the northeast portion of Polk County asked Lindsey what he planned to do about the worsening state of traffic in her area.
The answer Lindsey gave spurred his renewed interest in nailing down a permanent source of funding for road improvements.
"It took me a minute to reflect. And my answer was: Nothing. There's nothing I can do," Lindsey told The Ledger in March. "I don't have the resources to do anything, and that's when I, it came to me. Today is as good as it's ever going to be. Tomorrow, it's going to be worse. The next month it's going to be worse until there is a dedicated funding source for transportation.
"This is what we've got," Lindsey added.
Smith works 31 miles from her job with the school districtin Bartow.In the morning, it takes her about an hour to get to work from her home in Davenport, a commute that climbs to an hour and ahalf on her way home in the afternoon, she said.It used to take her 50 minutes.
"It used to be, 'Oh, avoid I-4.'But now it's like, 'Avoid 27,'" Smith said. "I can easily spend a half hour sitting on 27."
Smith and her husband are only able to continue sending their son toa special school in Orlando because their parents take the preschooler most days of the week.
"Taking him to and from school is a full-time job," Smith said. "It [takes a] village to take him to his school because whoever is doing it, they're spending four and a half hours on the road a day."
But residents don't have to hop on I-4 to see for themselves how bad traffic has gotten.
Daniel Shelnutt, 35, moved to Lakeland from Lithia in 2017. He said traffic in Polk is a "cakewalk" compared to Bloomingdale and Brandon, an opinion echoed by Lakeland's Planning and Transportation Manager Chuck Barmby.
But even so, Shelnutt avoids traveling across the city from his home in Cleveland Heights when he can.
"My parents live on the north side. And to the best of my ability, I definitely try to keep those trips to the weekend only because of how congested downtown Lakeland can get," Shelnutt said. "I would say regardless of the time of day, downtown Lakeland always seems to go to a crawl."
Shelnutt moved to Lakeland to be closer to family. For him, that's more important than traffic woes.
"I think the more popular a place gets, the more traffic is going to be. It's a natural thing," Shelnutt said. "I don't think it's going to be any better anywhere else."
Other development news:
- Polk County approves 32 apartment units behind the Lake Gibson Publix
- After eight-month battle, county approves 276 apartments near Daughtery Road
- Developer revises plans for proposed Lake Miriam apartment complex
More residents, more problems
In the past two years, 58,000 people have moved to Polk County. At the time of the 2020 census, 752,046 peoplewere recorded as living in the county.
At Polk Vision's State of the County event in early May, County Manager Bill Beasley said Polkcould host a million residents by 2035, a decade earlier than previously thought. The northeast sector of the county in particular is growing rapidly— it's projected to add 201,449 residents by 2045, according to numbers provided by Lindsey. The next fastest-growing area is the northwest, set to add 72,827 residents in the same period.
"We're continuing to grow. We're continuing to get additional residents in the city. We're also getting additional employment," Barmby said. "A lot of that employment is logistics-based, freight, movement-based, and we need a safe way to get folks to and from work."
State of the County:County officials come face to face with Polk growing pains
According to Lindsey's numbers, more than 320,000 residents are supposed to flood into the county in the next 20 years; if current immigration rates keep pace, that might be a conservative estimate. With those residents will come demand for 145,548 dwelling units and 280 lane miles.
"This is the mountain we have to climb across all of these planning districts," Lindsey said.
As the area racks up new faces, transportation projects are going to have to come to the forefront. But current funding sources, primarily through the Florida Department of Transportation, are essentially tapped out.
At a meeting of the Lakeland Area Mass Transit District board in January, Lakeland Commissioner Sara Roberts McCarley said the majority of emails she gets from residents concern roads and transit. And atmany of Lakeland and the county's most controversial hearings on new residential developments, the number one concern brought by residents is traffic and deteriorating road conditions.
"As far as finding the money for some of these other projects, the onus is probably going to land on the citizens of Polk County and each municipality to figure out how are we going to be able to pay for some of these city projects— either ourselves, or get enough money leveraged locally to where then the DOT does come in and can support it," McCarley said.
But McCarley said finding additional dollars for improvementsis like "getting blood from a turnip."
"There's just not a lot of money to go around with 1,000people a day moving to Florida," McCarley said. "We're just sort of behind the 8-ball and we keep trying to dig out."
'Archaic' funding sources not keeping pace
Road infrastructure and improvements are funded primarily through one source: the gas tax.
Each time someone pumps a gallon of gas into their vehicle, a portion of the sale goes to federal, state and local gas taxes. As of April, Floridians pay about 19 cents a gallon in gas taxes. Those dollars are then distributed based on proportionate share, said FDOT District 1 Secretary L.K. Nandam.
"Our existing funding sources are archaic," Barmby said. "The federal gas tax hasn't been increased since 1993, and the county has levied all of the available local option gas taxes, and that was done probably 1999, 2000."
There are more cars on the road today than there were 30 years ago, leading to an increase in revenue. But that upward curve is being flattened by other factors.
"Our ability to grow our program is kind of like getting limited based on traditional gas tax revenue and the reason being is electric vehicles are increasing, right, and the efficiency of the vehicles is improving," Nandam said. "That means a person who was driving and drove 15 miles and then had to fill a gallon of gas, now he's filling after 30 miles, right. Or they own an electric vehicle— they're not even filling it again."
Revenue from the gas tax is expected to flatten by 2029, Nandam said. But even as the value of the gas tax declines, the need for infrastructure continues to rise.
And the cost of building that infrastructure is on the rise, too. Lindsey pointed to the cost of the Lake Wilson Road project— $40 million to widen 1.1 mile of road.
"It's not going to get any cheaper. The demand is not going to get any less," Lindsey said. "I think we have a responsibility to plan for the future, consider all options, and be specific in our commitments on what we plan to do."
Nandam said that at the state and Congressional level, conversations have been ongoing for about three years concerning an alternative to the gas tax. Potential solutions include a one-time fee for electric vehicles and mileage-based charges for electric vehicles that would feed into transportation improvements.
"Growth either has to pay for itself, right, or has to be paid by the general public," Nandam said, "to cover the benefit that they would enjoy."
Nandam said that in order to address local needs, there has to be "some sort of paid local referendum that's going to support infrastructure." Because just as the cities and counties are strapped for cash, FDOT's resources are getting stretched thinner every day.
McCarley said it feels like FDOT is in "the same boat as us."
"There is a great deal of need and a very limited number of resources that can be applied financially," McCarley said.
What's eating the funds? Maintenance
The Polk Transportation Planning Organization board is made up of elected officials from around the county, including all five county commissioners.
Lindsey said while members can move a few things around, they mostly gather to approve what FDOT presents to the board as priority projects, which usually fall into two categories: regional projects and maintaining state roads.
Polk TPO Transportation Planning Administrator Ryan Kordek echoed Lindsey's concerns.
"The Polk TPO, we request. We don't really control the money," Kordek said. "There hasn't been a lot of funding for our priorities. That's kind of the takeaway from the last several years.
Lindsey's frustration with that process led to his comments about "rearranging deck chairs" in December.
"We're dealing with DOT projects, state roads, and we don't get down to the nitty gritty of county and city roads," Lindsey said. "The local roads, although we get some gas tax revenue that is shared with the municipalities, that is almost exclusively used to maintain existing roads."
Lindsey said in terms of funding for expansion or improvement of existing roads, there's "almost none."
"There's no capital money there," Lindsey said. "It's just O and M —operation and maintenance revenues."
But that doesn't mean maintenance isn't important. Elected officials and city and county staff agree— maintenance has to be a top priority. It just can't be the only priority.
"Once roads start to fail in disrepair, it costs exponentially more money to fix them after they've started to fall apart," Barmby said. "It's becoming harder and harder, whether it's DOT or us, to be able to keep the roads in the condition that the public expects because of the increased maintenance costs."
Barmby added that the increasing pace of development is going to drive the need for additional road repairs to improve quality of life.
"It's bad enough if you're, if you're driving on a congested roadway. But if that roadway is full of potholes and the sidewalks are cracked?" Barmby said. "That's what I think drives people, drives people over the edge."
With the increased amount of time Smith has spent on the road lately, she's noticed where maintenance has fallen short. And she agrees with Barmby.
"It's frustrating in that the construction makes things more difficult to maneuver," Smith said. "But I'm happy if they're working on that infrastructure. I think we desperately need it. I will tolerate making it worse for a little bit if it gets better in the long run."
Decades of requests go unheard
While maintenance is needed, limited funding getting funneled to only that purpose means major improvement projects can get pushed to the side. In Lakeland, for example, there are "legacy projects,"such as expansionsof Bartow Road and New Tampa Highway, that have been on the books for more than 50 years, Barmby said.
Kordek, who has been with the TPO more than 25 years, can also recall projects that have been needed for decades, such as expanding U.S. 98 in Lakeland.
"In recent years, there hasn't been a lot of funding for some of these projects that we've been seeking funding for for a long time," Kordek said.
A long time coming:Roundabouts and lane expansions coming to the I-4, State Road 33 interchange
Part of the issue with legacy projectsis that design plans "go stale fairly quickly," Barmby said. And that heaps on additional costs when it comes to construction and design.
"Once we get the momentum going, we want to get these projects done and check them off the list so we're not treading water," Barmby said. "Every time we have to go back and redo an alignment study or revisit something, it's just added cost that doesn't actually go into the end product."
To get projects funded, the TPO has turned to two primary solutions. One, since everyone's sources are limited, the TPO tries to combine city and county funding with FDOT dollars to make projects more feasible. And two, the TPO has focused on breaking big projects into bite-sized chunks so that at least something gets done.
Plus, there's the subtle art of prioritization.
"We all have a limited amount of funding to address all those needs," Kordek said. "We focus on the most critical, the most congested, is kind of the theme behind a lot of our priorities."
When state dollars step outside of the maintenance mechanism, projects are more likely to get funded if they benefit large swaths of the region. Barmby pointed to the I-4 Beyond the Ultimate project as an example. If Polk County can tie major road projects to Orlando and Tampa, those projects are more likely to receive attention and dollars in Tallahassee.
Since state and federal dollars are largely earmarked for maintenance and region-wide cooperative projects, road improvements need to be funded a different way.
"We're still using the old, outdated funding sources. We're having to put more money into maintenance," Barmby said. "In terms of capacity ... we've got to be creative and figure out new ways to do it."
Elephant in the room: The sales tax
To raise the revenue needed to fund major transportation projects before the county buckles under the weight of its own expansion, elected officials have a few options.
For one, the county could look into raising impact fees, which Lindsey said they are pursuing. But he added that impact fees are not an "overwhelming source" of revenue. Lindsey said commissioners are also considering levying higher impact fees in higher-growth areas, where demand for service is greater.
The county last raised impact fees in September 2019. Currently, developers pay $11,625 worth of impact feesper single-family home, and it costs $7,856 per multifamily unit, according to the county's website.
The county could also look at raising property taxes, but Lindsey doesn't think there's much appetite for that solution. He thinks the county has a better chance of convincing voters to approve a third option: a 1-cent sales tax increase.
"A property tax is just that— it is tied exclusively to people who own property, residential and commercial," Lindsey said. "Whereas a sales tax applies to everybody, whether they rent or they pass through or they stay here for six months."
Only the Board of County Commissioners has the authority to place a sales-tax increase on the ballot for the next general election.
There is a fourth option: bonding to borrow the money from the federal government. But Lindsey said that likely wouldn't yield "revenue sufficient to make a dent in the problem."
Meanwhile, a1-cent sales tax is estimated to generate $1.2 billion over 12 years, which Lindsey called a "conservative" estimate.
Even if a sales tax couldn't fund all of the projects municipalities would clamor to get on the books, cities and the county being able to cover some of their projects' costs could entice the FDOT to fill in the gaps.
The current sales tax in Polk County is 7%, meaning for every dollar you spend on an item, seven cents are collected in sales tax.
"If you buy a $10 taxable item and there's a 5% sales tax, then you're going to pay $10.50 for that purchase. And so that extra 50 cents is the sales tax component of it," Sean Snaith, director of the University of Central Florida's Institute for Economic Forecasting, said. "So if the sales tax goes up by a (percentage point) from 5 cents to 6 cents, then instead of $10.50, you would pay $10.60 for that item."
McCarley, who chairs the Lakeland Are Mass Transit District board of directors, thinks a sales tax could work.
"Depending on what it's used for, if we could point it to specific projects, like very specific projects, and make sure that it's viable— then yeah, I, I'd be open to considering it," McCarley said. "I wish that there was a magic wand and that we, I had all sorts of money coming in from all sorts of places to fix this, butthat's just not happening at the moment, so I think it's one solution maybe of many on the table."
Third time's the charm?
In 2014, 72% of Polk voters rejected a 1-cent sales tax increase, dubbed "My Ride/My Road." The tax increase from 7% to 8% was projected to raise $64 million a year.
That vote came just four years after a 2010 proposal that also received a resounding "no":62% of citizens voted against the proposal.
In 2014, proponents of the proposal spent $47,405 pushing for its passage. Additionally, the Board of County Commissioners and the Lakeland Area Mass Transit District board spent $50,000 and $165,000, respectively, on educational materials, though government bodies cannot officially push a certain position on referendums.
They were heavily outspent by the main opposition group, Florida Taxpayers Defense, which spent $383,396 to defeat the proposal, according to past Ledger reporting. The opposition was largely funded by Publix.
"It was a, I would say, a naïve and ambitious undertaking," Lindsey said. "The basic message was, 'Give us your money and we'll spend it wisely.' That didn't go very well."
The proposal in 2014 would have given half of the revenue to fund mass transit and half to fund road improvements. Lindsey said that "grossly overfunded transportation and underfunded roads," leading to a swift rejection.
This time, Lindsey is proposing a project-specific sales tax. And there would be a sunset clause, which means that if the tax is approved, voters would get the chance to revisit it in the next 10-12 years— it wouldn't renew in perpetuity.
"The public absolutely deserves to know what exactly that money is going for," McCarley said. "They should be able to point to it, touch it, feel it, see it in action."
Lindsey would like to see the revenue exclusively used to pave new roads and expand existing roads. But Barmby thinks the money could also be used for maintenance as existing revenue sources dry up.
"Our roadways are going to degrade further and further unless we figure out a funding strategy to deal with maintenance because that's, that's almost exclusively gas tax," Barmby said. "The purchasingpower now compared to what it was in 1993 or 2000— I mean, this just, it's just not there."
'We'll have to see'
Snaith said that, relatively speaking, a 1-cent sales tax doesn't have a "major impact" on buyers' wallets.
But that doesn't mean it's without risks. Snaith pointed out that sales taxes are often referred to as "regressive" because they have a larger impact on lower-income households than higher-income households.
Additionally, 68% of voters in 2018 voted to renew a 15-year, half-cent sales tax that helps fund the Polk County School Board. The tax was first passed in 2003 and has helped fund 555 projects, according to past Ledger reporting.
Snaith said that recent vote may sway some voters against another increase if they view the government as "going back to the well too often."
But the time they spend in traffic trying to get from their house to their polling location may impact their decision, too.
"Many of the voters are experiencing the cost of inaction in terms of upgrading the transportation network when you've got such population and economic growth taking place," Snaith said.
Barmby agrees.
"In the seven, eight years since the last referendum, things have really changed because our growth rate has just skyrocketed," Barmby said.
But Lindsey is wary of being too optimistic. While there's plenty of time for gas prices and inflation to come down before 2024, residents may still be be cautious with their pocketbooks.
"There's reluctance right now. The economy is on the tip of everybody's tongue," Lindsey said. "Trying to do something for 2022 was just too ambitious in too short a time. And we'll have to see how the economy evolves."
Polk County isn't the only area grappling with the effects of fast-paced growth driven by COVID-era immigration. Orlando and Tampa are also expanding— and seeing the impacts of rapid growth on the prices of homes and rental units— and regional road projects are in a constant state of flux and construction, such as along I-4.
Snaith said that across Central Florida, a combination of solutions such as sales taxes, property taxes and toll-based fees will need to be realized to get the situation under control.
"If you look at households earning $80,000 a year or less, about 55% of their spending goes to two categories: transport and housing. And those things are not unrelated," Snaith said. "To help with housing affordability, you need better transportation networks to get people from places where they can afford housing to places where there are jobs."
Lindsey and McCarley both emphasized the need to pull private business partners into any road-building endeavor.
"I think that we need to always have partners at the table to solve these big issues," McCarley said. "I don't think any of us can do it in a silo."
Independent of source, the money is desperately needed— on that, Snaith and elected officials agree.
"There's no such thing as a free extra lane on a highway. And it has to be paid for," Snaith said.
Maya Lora can be reached with tips or questions at mlora@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @mayaklora.
