Florida's Great Northwest backs Alabama-Florida toll road
A Destin-based regional economic development organization has lent its support to a proposed Montgomery, Ala.-to-Panama City connector toll road.
Florida's Great Northwest released a statement Monday that endorsed the limited-access toll road and cited its importance to the area's future transportation and international commerce needs.
Al Wenstrand, the organization's president, attended a Monday news conference concerning the toll road held at the Dothan Area Chamber of Commerce.
He described the news conference as a public announcement of the long-rumored project as well as Focus 2000 of the Wiregrass, the nonprofit corporation formed to develop the Alabama portion of the road.
The news conference lacked specific details on the road's exact route, estimates on costs and economic development-related numbers.
Wenstrand said Florida's Great Northwest had been included in discussions about the toll road.
"We've had briefings on this for close to a year," he said, adding that the organization had traveled a couple of times to Dothan for public meetings.
Birmingham attorney Luther Strange has been hired by developers involved with project, Wenstrand said, and he spoke at the news conference Monday.
Strange said that private nonprofit corporations would design, construct and operate the toll road, with no federal or state funds involved.
The investors would go to financial markets and seek tax-exempt bonds to pay for the road, he said at the news conference.
Alabama media reports have placed the road's starting point near Midland City on U.S. 231. It would run south, bypassing Dothan on the west and entering Florida.
Wenstrand said Monday that the road could go all the way south to U.S. 98.
"The belief is that it can be financed and built in a relatively short period of time," he said.
Wenstrand said a non-profit corporation similar to Focus 2000 will need to be created for the Florida portion of the road. If constructed, the toll road would provide an interstate quality link between Northwest Florida and Inter-states 65 and 85, complementing infrastructure like the new Panama City-Bay County International Airport, Port Panama City and the Bay Line Railroad.
He said the road would provide a north-south means for international freight transportation into Midwest markets like Chicago and St. Louis as well as Southern cities such as Atlanta, Birmingham and Memphis.
There will be a public information meeting at 9 a.m. May 15, in Chipley at the county annex, located on South Boulevard.
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| This is just another "Trans Texas Corridor" NAFTA superhighway landgrab through the poor rural areas of this nation. How do these fatcats propose to steal private property and pave over family farms without state help? Eminent Domain is still a state function, even post-Kelo. Try eating when your farms are all paved over for the rich fatcats to use. No, no, but HE"doublehockeysticks" no! Take your New World Order highway and put it where the sun don't shine, "Florida's Great Northwest" you don't speak for us natives. WE speak for ourselves around here, transplant destroyers of God's beautiful earth and the people on it. See Endgame by Alex Jones for more info on these parasitical "elites" and their master plan for YOUR future. |
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| Panhandle Girl - May 12, 2008 04:35:11 PM | Remove Comment |