‘Q’ Breakfast Serves Up Transportation Issues

Volusia County Economic Development took its most recent “Q” Breakfast on the road without ever leaving the Denis McGee Room at Daytona International Airport.

The quarterly economic development event featured John Tyler, Florida Department of Transportation District 5 secretary; Colleen Nicoulin, executive director of the River to Sea Transportation Planning Organization; and Volusia County Public Works Director Ben Bartlett talking about challenges and opportunities in transportation networks.

Nicoulin kicked off the panel discussion with a quick overview of the TPO’s functions.

“The TPO covers both Volusia and Flagler counties (and) provides a forum for cooperative decision making,” she said. “We’re a planning agency.”

Tyler said FDOT operates as a “decentralized state agency” and District 5 covers nine Florida counties.

“We plan, we design, we construct, we maintain, we operate highways in nine counties,” he said, adding the District also maintains bridges and other transportation infrastructure. “We’re involved in all forms of transportation.”

Bartlett said Volusia County is responsible for roughly 1,000 miles of roadway and conducts traffic analysis studies to determine what infrastructure projects are needed with public input.

“We take that priorities list and go out to the public,” he said. “We want the public’s input because they are the ones using those roads.”

One of the biggest issues facing transportation planners and builders is the Sunshine State’s population growth, which increases capacity on the transportation systems.

“Growth is such a tremendous opportunity that brings tremendous challenges,” Tyler said.

Nicoulin said one of the ways the TPO addresses the challenge of growth is through its long-range transportation plan, which looks out 25 years to assess what the likely transportation issue will arise.

“We identify what the transportation needs are, and we prioritize,” she said. “We transmit that priorities list to the (Florida) Department of Transportation.

Along with the challenge of growth is the issue of capital investment dollars to fund the needed projects was cited by the panelists.

“One of our biggest challenges is allocating those limited funds as efficiently as possible,” Bartlett said. “Inflation has limited our ability to apply that funding.”

Funding limitations also impact the TPO’s work, Nicoulin said.

“We cannot fund every municipality’s priorities,” she said. “We don’t have enough funding to fund all of the projects on our priorities list.”

Tyler said on the state level for FDOT, funding comes for the gasoline tax, and technology has changed the equation for the agency.

“Vehicles are getting more and more fuel efficient,” he said, which means drivers are buying less fuel. “Our projected revenues are not going up at the same rate (as population growth).”

Tyler said the gas tax funding model “worked well for the last 40 years,” but won’t be sufficient going forward.

“We need to come up with something different for the next 40 years. It’s a tremendous challenge the whole state needs to focus on.”