Madfloridian's Journal - Florida to "help" environment by building a toll road up the rural center of the state.

At least that is what one of the lawyers involved says. He claims it will be a way to manage the growth that is coming. This may be one of the new "privately publicly" funded roadways. There are several going on.

Note the deals the landowners are making for the right to the development. This alarms me on so many levels. The claims that it will help the environment, control growth...this is the type of "opposites" thinking engaged in by the Republicans. You know like up is down, and in is out, that stuff.

Lawyer: Proposed Parkway Could Help Save Environment

LAKELAND - The proposed Heartland Parkway, a toll road straight up the center of Florida from Fort Myers to Interstate 4, if done right, could result in greater protection of the environment than if the land was left to develop on its own, a lawyer for 10 large landowners pushing for the 140-mile highway said Thursday. In a meeting with The Ledger editorial board, former state Sen. Rick Dantzler, lawyer for the group, and Adam Goodman, representing the owners' nonprofit organization to push for the road, Heart Inc., defended the plan against opponents' charges that the toll road was simply a plan to allow development in the center of the state, one of the last largely rural areas.

"If I could be king for a day, I'd stop much of the growth, but you can't,'' said Dantzler, who chaired the Natural Resources Committee while in the Florida Senate in the 1990s.

"Growth is coming; it is here,'' Dantzler said. "In the next 25 years another 6 million people will be living south of Intestate 4; 1.5 million will be in the heartland … The best approach is a (road) plan that can protect against rural sprawl, which would fragment environmental areas and disrupt wildlife corridors.''

Dantzler is lying. If they had not turned my state over to developers, of course they could stop it. When you vote in real estate dealers and developers at all levels of city and county and state....then uncontrolled growth is what you get.

There were hints by both that the big landowners along the route might be willing to a trade right-of-way for the toll road in exchange for concentrated development rights on portions of their properties - lowering the cost of the road even further. The land among the owners in the group totals about 1 million acres. Dantzler said the vast majority would be kept undeveloped or in light use.

If we do nothing, we are going to see sprawl anyway,'' Dantzler said. "If we take the proper planning and create this agreement, it will protect a major portion of the land (from development) and allow connected wildlife corridors, while still aiding (counties south of Polk) which are areas of critical economic concern,'' he said.

Ah, Rick Dantler, you are so right. Using the inevitability theme is dishonest, but it will get you what you want.

I feel sick over this.