POLK COUNTY, Fla. – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Monday morning his administration is moving forward with a proposal to expedite 20 major interstate and roadway projects across the state of Florida in the next four years.
DeSantis said the “Moving Florida Forward” initiative will help some projects finish up to 10 years ahead of schedule and will be paid for through Florida’s budget surplus.
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“Just in this year, we’re going to put in $4 billion from our budget surplus to be in these key projects. We’re also going to dedicate $134 million each year to the State Transportation Work Program to further support and then because we have such a high credit rating, they’re going to be able to leverage that money that we put in for even more so the total is going to be about $7 billion over four years, which is really, really significant,” DeSantis said during a news conference in Polk County.
DeSantis mostly spoke about projects that are located in Central and Southwest Florida that will widen existing roadways, make existing highway connections more efficient, expand interchanges to be more free-flowing and help improve traffic flow.
“I think anywhere from ChampionsGate, you look at between here in Tampa, you go up like I-75 in Ocala, interchanges with the Florida Turnpike. There’s a lot of places that really need this relief,” he said.
Some of the other projects include:
- Reconstructing US 301 between County Road 470 and Florida’s turnpike to increase traffic capacity
- Adding new lanes on I-75 between State Road 44 and State Road 326 and making interchange modifications
- Adding new lanes and reconstructing existing interchanges on I-4 between ChampionsGate and Osceola Parkway
- Constructing a roadway to connect County Road 532 and State Road 429 to I-4
- Improving I-4 traffic interchange at State Road 33 to support more traffic and adding new lanes
- Adding new lanes on I-4 between US 27 And ChampionsGate interchanges to support more traffic
DeSantis said he plans to work with legislators to make the initiative a reality.
For more information, visit Fdot.gov/MovingFloridaForward.
