Central Florida is working on improving the traffic and expressways, but is this coming at the cost of wildlife?
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According to The Tampa Bay Times, a new expressway is set to be built in Osceola County, but it’s planned to be dangerously close to the Disney Wilderness Preserve. Here’s everything you need to know.
The Southport Connector is proposed to be a 15-mile tolled expressway in Southern Osceola County, extending from Poinciana Parkway to Pleasant Hill Road. It will continue east to Florida’s Turnpike and will have six elevated lanes above and between Cypress Parkway.
A portion of the proposed expressway would be just south of Lake Tohopekaliga, bordering the Disney Wilderness Preserve. While county officials are ready to approve the route, environmentalists are concerned about the impact.
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Part of the path would run through a critical portion of the Florida Wildlife Corridor, which is an 18-million-acre set of land that is home to fragile plants and animals. While the Florida Wildlife Corridor Foundation is not against the project, they’re concerned that there won’t be enough areas for the wildlife to safely cross.
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Jason Lauritsen, the chief conservation officer of the Florida Wildlife Corridor Foundation, said, “Whether it’s deer or black bears or panthers… having connections like this would mean good genetic health for those wildlife populations. Anytime you get fragmentation like this, little by little you end up having populations that become isolated from one another, and over time species become less diverse and less numerous.”
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The foundation has recommended that the expressway be elevated, even though the undeveloped areas, to limit the chances of wildlife getting injured, especially for the Florida panthers that roam that specific area. Unfortunately, this proposition is very expensive.
Janet Bowman, the senior policy analyst with The Nature Conservancy in Florida, which manages the Disney Wilderness Preserve, spoke about managing the area once the expressway is built. They often do prescribed burns to reduce wildfire risk and promote healthy plant and animal life, and if it doesn’t get the prescribed fire, species might struggle.
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A controlled fire by a highway isn’t practical and can change when and how they conduct the fires. There are also concerns that this is just the start of more urbanization since new roads could increase traffic, rather than decrease it.
Charles Lee, the director of advocacy at Audubon of Florida, said “There is really no happy ending. There’s only what I would describe as a modest lessening of impacts.”
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The Central Florida Expressway Authority will be making their final decision in December.
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This is sad. I’m sure the Governor of Florida doesn’t care about conservation and we know for sure he doesn’t like Disney (even though he got married in Disney World). I wonder if he burned his photos???