"John H." wrote in message
...

FOR SPECIAL INTERESTS -- HIGHWAY BILL: On Friday, Congress sent to
President Bush a six-year $286.5 billion highway bill which was
overflowing with wasteful pork spending.

Hmmm. The Highway bill appropriated the necessary funding to widen I-75 in
Southwest Florida from 2 lanes to 3 lanes. Since most of the working folks
in Naples, Bonita Springs, Estero, and Fort Myers have to sit in 1-2 hours
of traffic on that road every morning, I'd say that the money is hardly
"wasteful pork spending".

NOYB wrote:

Hmmm. The Highway bill appropriated the necessary funding to widen I-75 in
Southwest Florida from 2 lanes to 3 lanes. Since most of the working folks
in Naples, Bonita Springs, Estero, and Fort Myers have to sit in 1-2 hours
of traffic on that road every morning, I'd say that the money is hardly
"wasteful pork spending".


Sounds like your traffic authorities are as backward as ours. We had a
busy secondary highway into the city widened to 3 lanes from two a
couple of years ago. They should have made it 4 lanes while they were
at it. Seems a number of commercial businesses along the stretch didn't
want the four as it would infringe on their smaller parking lots. A lot
of those went belly-up anyway and the three lane road is already
overcrowded at rush hour.

"Don White" wrote in message
...
NOYB wrote:

Hmmm. The Highway bill appropriated the necessary funding to widen I-75
in Southwest Florida from 2 lanes to 3 lanes. Since most of the working
folks in Naples, Bonita Springs, Estero, and Fort Myers have to sit in
1-2 hours of traffic on that road every morning, I'd say that the money
is hardly "wasteful pork spending".

Sounds like your traffic authorities are as backward as ours. We had a
busy secondary highway into the city widened to 3 lanes from two a couple
of years ago. They should have made it 4 lanes while they were at it.
Seems a number of commercial businesses along the stretch didn't want the
four as it would infringe on their smaller parking lots. A lot of those
went belly-up anyway and the three lane road is already overcrowded at
rush hour.

Wait till they figure out what's been determined elsewhe Sometimes,
widening highways just leads the sprawl someplace else. Once that happens,
you can never build a big enough highway. It becomes impossible to stay a
step ahead of the ever-increasing traffic.

Interesting links he
http://www.sierraclub.org/sprawl/tra...tion/index.asp

(This link is intended for Don)

On Mon, 01 Aug 2005 20:59:08 +0000, Doug Kanter wrote:


Wait till they figure out what's been determined elsewhe Sometimes,
widening highways just leads the sprawl someplace else. Once that happens,
you can never build a big enough highway. It becomes impossible to stay a
step ahead of the ever-increasing traffic.

Yup, and with oil with oil supplies getting tighter and tighter . . .
Sprawl just doesn't seem to be the way to go, in the long run.

"Doug Kanter" wrote in message
...

"Don White" wrote in message
...
NOYB wrote:

Hmmm. The Highway bill appropriated the necessary funding to widen I-75
in Southwest Florida from 2 lanes to 3 lanes. Since most of the working
folks in Naples, Bonita Springs, Estero, and Fort Myers have to sit in
1-2 hours of traffic on that road every morning, I'd say that the money
is hardly "wasteful pork spending".

Sounds like your traffic authorities are as backward as ours. We had a
busy secondary highway into the city widened to 3 lanes from two a couple
of years ago. They should have made it 4 lanes while they were at it.
Seems a number of commercial businesses along the stretch didn't want the
four as it would infringe on their smaller parking lots. A lot of those
went belly-up anyway and the three lane road is already overcrowded at
rush hour.

Wait till they figure out what's been determined elsewhe Sometimes,
widening highways just leads the sprawl someplace else.

Fortunately, the sprawl in Collier County is limited by the Everglades
National Park to the East.

"Don White" wrote in message
...
NOYB wrote:

Hmmm. The Highway bill appropriated the necessary funding to widen I-75
in Southwest Florida from 2 lanes to 3 lanes. Since most of the working
folks in Naples, Bonita Springs, Estero, and Fort Myers have to sit in
1-2 hours of traffic on that road every morning, I'd say that the money
is hardly "wasteful pork spending".

Sounds like your traffic authorities are as backward as ours. We had a
busy secondary highway into the city widened to 3 lanes from two a couple
of years ago. They should have made it 4 lanes while they were at it.
Seems a number of commercial businesses along the stretch didn't want the
four as it would infringe on their smaller parking lots. A lot of those
went belly-up anyway and the three lane road is already overcrowded at
rush hour.

Exactly. Immokalee Road was widened from 1 lane to 2. They just completed
it in 2002. Just a couple of months ago, they started the process of
widening it to 3 lanes.

"NOYB" wrote in message
nk.net...

"Don White" wrote in message
...
NOYB wrote:

Hmmm. The Highway bill appropriated the necessary funding to widen I-75
in Southwest Florida from 2 lanes to 3 lanes. Since most of the working
folks in Naples, Bonita Springs, Estero, and Fort Myers have to sit in
1-2 hours of traffic on that road every morning, I'd say that the money
is hardly "wasteful pork spending".

Sounds like your traffic authorities are as backward as ours. We had a
busy secondary highway into the city widened to 3 lanes from two a couple
of years ago. They should have made it 4 lanes while they were at it.
Seems a number of commercial businesses along the stretch didn't want the
four as it would infringe on their smaller parking lots. A lot of those
went belly-up anyway and the three lane road is already overcrowded at
rush hour.

Exactly. Immokalee Road was widened from 1 lane to 2. They just
completed it in 2002. Just a couple of months ago, they started the
process of widening it to 3 lanes.

If anyone cared to do so, they should find an ambitious reporter to look
DEEPLY into that mistake. There's a good chance it was NOT a mistake.

"Doug Kanter" wrote in message
...

"NOYB" wrote in message
nk.net...

"Don White" wrote in message
...
NOYB wrote:

Hmmm. The Highway bill appropriated the necessary funding to widen
I-75 in Southwest Florida from 2 lanes to 3 lanes. Since most of the
working folks in Naples, Bonita Springs, Estero, and Fort Myers have to
sit in 1-2 hours of traffic on that road every morning, I'd say that
the money is hardly "wasteful pork spending".

Sounds like your traffic authorities are as backward as ours. We had a
busy secondary highway into the city widened to 3 lanes from two a
couple of years ago. They should have made it 4 lanes while they were
at it. Seems a number of commercial businesses along the stretch didn't
want the four as it would infringe on their smaller parking lots. A lot
of those went belly-up anyway and the three lane road is already
overcrowded at rush hour.

Exactly. Immokalee Road was widened from 1 lane to 2. They just
completed it in 2002. Just a couple of months ago, they started the
process of widening it to 3 lanes.

If anyone cared to do so, they should find an ambitious reporter to look
DEEPLY into that mistake. There's a good chance it was NOT a mistake.

It's already been done. A County Commissioner, City Planning Manager, and
local developer are in jail over it.

"NOYB" wrote in message
...

"Doug Kanter" wrote in message
...

"NOYB" wrote in message
nk.net...

"Don White" wrote in message
...
NOYB wrote:

Hmmm. The Highway bill appropriated the necessary funding to widen
I-75 in Southwest Florida from 2 lanes to 3 lanes. Since most of the
working folks in Naples, Bonita Springs, Estero, and Fort Myers have
to sit in 1-2 hours of traffic on that road every morning, I'd say
that the money is hardly "wasteful pork spending".

Sounds like your traffic authorities are as backward as ours. We had a
busy secondary highway into the city widened to 3 lanes from two a
couple of years ago. They should have made it 4 lanes while they were
at it. Seems a number of commercial businesses along the stretch didn't
want the four as it would infringe on their smaller parking lots. A
lot of those went belly-up anyway and the three lane road is already
overcrowded at rush hour.

Exactly. Immokalee Road was widened from 1 lane to 2. They just
completed it in 2002. Just a couple of months ago, they started the
process of widening it to 3 lanes.

If anyone cared to do so, they should find an ambitious reporter to look
DEEPLY into that mistake. There's a good chance it was NOT a mistake.

It's already been done. A County Commissioner, City Planning Manager, and
local developer are in jail over it.

Let me guess: It would've obviously been cheaper to go from 1 to 3 lanes,
but the contractor felt otherwise, and "convinced" the other 2 of his
views.

"Doug Kanter" wrote in message
...

"NOYB" wrote in message
...

"Doug Kanter" wrote in message
...

"NOYB" wrote in message
nk.net...

"Don White" wrote in message
...
NOYB wrote:

Hmmm. The Highway bill appropriated the necessary funding to widen
I-75 in Southwest Florida from 2 lanes to 3 lanes. Since most of the
working folks in Naples, Bonita Springs, Estero, and Fort Myers have
to sit in 1-2 hours of traffic on that road every morning, I'd say
that the money is hardly "wasteful pork spending".

Sounds like your traffic authorities are as backward as ours. We had
a busy secondary highway into the city widened to 3 lanes from two a
couple of years ago. They should have made it 4 lanes while they were
at it. Seems a number of commercial businesses along the stretch
didn't want the four as it would infringe on their smaller parking
lots. A lot of those went belly-up anyway and the three lane road is
already overcrowded at rush hour.

Exactly. Immokalee Road was widened from 1 lane to 2. They just
completed it in 2002. Just a couple of months ago, they started the
process of widening it to 3 lanes.

If anyone cared to do so, they should find an ambitious reporter to look
DEEPLY into that mistake. There's a good chance it was NOT a mistake.

It's already been done. A County Commissioner, City Planning Manager,
and local developer are in jail over it.

Let me guess: It would've obviously been cheaper to go from 1 to 3 lanes,
but the contractor felt otherwise, and "convinced" the other 2 of his
views.

No. The Commissioner and City Planning Manager should have put the brakes
on the PUD's out to the East until the infrastructure caught up. Instead,
they built a road based on a 12 year old study that said 2 lanes would be
sufficient to carry the traffic load. The county did not have the money
needed to build 3 lanes without imposing the necessary impact fees on the
developer. The developer bought the county officials, and the road was
built using 2 lanes instead of 3...making it obsolete before it was
completed.

That particular area has several other problems too right now.
Environmentalists are fighting the expansion of a major north-south artery
(951) that has been on the drawing board for years. Most of the PUD's out
that way were approved under the premise that 951would have already been
built by now...but they haven't even started it yet.

It's a total cluster **** out there. To make matters worse, a Walmart
SuperCenter is weeks away from opening, and construction of a Super Target
is just getting started less than a half-mile away. To screw things up even
further, they're completely redesigning the on-off ramps from I-75 in that
area...at the same time the road widening is taking place *and* the
construction of the Walmart and Target stores (and a county park) are going
in.

Thank God I moved to an already-developed area well west of there that's
closer to the water and my office. It's 4 minutes to work now...and 7
minutes in tourist season with traffic.

When I lived out East of I-75 just last year, a 9 mile run to work was
taking me 45 minutes...and that was *before* the Walmart and Target
construction, and the Immokalee Road widening. I can't even imagine how bad
it is now...or will be once snowbird season starts in November/December.