Public Gets Taste of U.S. 98 Plans: Improvements to Commons Drive in Destin Not Included in Project for Six-Lane Highway

By Patrick Mcdermott, Northwest Florida Daily News, Fort Walton Beach

Apr. 7–OKALOOSA ISLAND — Residents got to a take a look and offer feedback Thursday on the Florida Department of Transportation’s proposed widening of U.S. Highway 98.

The project will stretch about 11.6 miles from Airport Road in Destin to County Road 30A in Walton County, turning the road into six lanes with medians, sidewalks and bike paths.

“It’s something that needs doing,” DOT spokesman Tommie Speights said at the meeting at the Emerald Coast Conference Center on Okaloosa Island. “Four lanes aren’t handling traffic.”

The project includes a fourlane flyover to move traffic over the intersection of U.S. 98 and Danny Wuerffel Way.

The widening, now in the project development and environmental study phase, must still go through final environmental design, right of way purchase and actual construction. The design phase would happen sometime after 2010 and construction could start by 2015, Speights said.

With a project that covers so much territory, the price tag is high. Buying right of way and construction is estimated to cost $124.8 million, to be paid by state and federal funds.

Several of the 15 to 20 people who attended the informal meeting said they supported the project.

Amy Cameron, who lives at the Grand Mariner condominium in Destin for part of the year, said the job was necessary.

“We’ve got to have it,” she said. “They can’t keep building and not improve the infrastructure.”

Her neighbor, Elizabeth Collins, said she didn’t like that the traffic light near her at Scenic Highway 98 would be taken out. There would be a light at Two Trees Road, instead.

“There’s a tremendous amount of pedestrians who come up there (and cross at the light),” she said.

Destin Councilman Larry Williges liked the plan, but had hoped Commons Drive would have been part of it.

“I’m really disappointed they’re not going to include Commons Drive, not necessarily to widen it but for some improvements,” he said.

Improving Commons Drive wasn’t possible because of the cost, said Brent Rawson, senior project manager with Hatch Mott MacDonald engineering firm. Preliminary estimates put the price for right of way alone at $80 million, he said.

“What we had looked at on Commons had some improvements, but they were outweighed by the sheer cost,” Rawson said.

There will be another public meeting in October after suggestions and ideas from Thursday’s session have been incorporated in the design. The plan can then be turned over to federal transportation officials for approval.

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Copyright (c) 2006, Northwest Florida Daily News, Fort Walton Beach

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