By Christine Moore, Orange County District 2 Commissioner

Orange County government maintains over 3,000 miles of roadway, enough to take a trip to California. Imagine being responsible to resurface at a cost of $250,000 per lane mile all this county infrastructure.  

Resurfacing, with only two-lane roads, while many roadways are four and five lanes, requires $1.5 billion every 12-15 years. The county public works budget is only $250 million annually. Thus, the county is behind by over $5 billion. 

Recently, the county resurfaced West Ponkan Road from US 441 to Plymouth Sorrento Road with the price tag of $2 million. A wise CFO, Randy Singh, told me upon my election to the County Commission in 2019 that the public works budget must allocate sufficient funds to maintain roadways before contemplating any additional capacity. It costs around $5.5 million per lane mile to expand roadways. 

Last summer, the commission hired Urban 3 to help develop a financial tool for evaluating the feasibility of new suburban neighborhoods. While developers, and of course homebuyers, pay for the initial road infrastructure, the long-term maintenance falls to county government and taxpayers.  

As a side note, most of you desire a developer to pay for upgrading non-subdivision or county or city roadways. However, the Florida Legislature does not allow developers to be forced to expand roadway capacity. That is why you see roadways and sidewalks improved only on portions abutting a new subdivision. 

You can quickly see from this information that widening or increasing capacity on Ponkan, Plymouth Sorrento, Kelly Park, Sadler, and Round Lake roads is so challenging. Between the Legislature’s prohibition on requiring the developers to add the extra capacity, counties and cities often get beat up unfairly. 

At the root of our challenge in Northwest Orange County was the extension of SR 429 or beltway around Orlando. I believe the Legislature should have required the toll agencies to fund additional improvements directly around these new interchanges. Central Florida Expressway Authority brings in $800 million annually – this is four times what the county is currently able to budget.  

Also, if you recall, our leaders back in the early 2000s negotiated the Wekiva Parkway deal to have limited access. The city of Apopka rezoned the entire area, creating a “new urban” city at the interchange. However, no infrastructure funding was provided for Kelly Park or Plymouth Sorrento roadway expansions. The intent was for the increased tax revenue to provide needed infrastructure funding.  

You know the problem here. The impact fees and taxes do not make it to county or city coffers until a Certificate of Occupancy is issued. Herein lies the answer to the gentleman who comes to complain at almost every council meeting about why infrastructure lags new development. 

Editor’s note: This is the first in a two-part series.