Accomplishing Access Management on the Florida Intrastate Highway System: US-19 Highway Corridor Experience

The Florida intrastate highway system (FIHS) is the network of state roads intended to carry the bulk of the state’s high-speed and high-volume traffic movements. Comprising only 3% of the state’s roads, the FIHS carries 32% of all traffic and 70% of truck traffic on the state highway system. However, the safe and efficient operation of the FIHS is in jeopardy. The system faces ever increasing levels of congestion and delay and a projected 20-year shortfall of $ 29 billion for needed capacity improvements. Given the lack of funding for needed capacity improvements, the Florida Department of Transportation (DOT) is turning to alternative strategies to preserve the operational integrity and safety of the system. Among these strategies is access management. The application of access management techniques on the FIHS is complicated, and sometimes undermined, by the separation of land use decision-making authority (controlled by local governments) and roadway decision-making authority (controlled by Florida DOT). To improve access management decision making on the FIHS, Florida DOT has begun to explain the overall benefits of access management to local governments and to coordinate the land development and road-way decision-making processes. Summarized is an effort to improve access management decision-making practices on a 10-mi corridor of US-19 in rural Levy County, an important north–south component of the FIHS.