Florida

What seemed a corruption scandal over payments of more than $100k to an anti-toll activist and a huge fight with the Orlando toll authority's PR man have fizzled away to nothing. The toll authority this week voted 3 to 1 to settle for $8,320 an 18 month old legal fight with PR guy Ron Pecora.

A toll collector was arrested for stealing tolls yesterday at the Leesburg mainline plaza in Lake County Florida. Seerajn Dhoray, 58, an employee of Faneuil Group, toll collection contractor to Florida's Turnpike, was charged with "grand theft" (see comment below) following two weeks in which his thievery was observed.

Florida DOT will be holding an industry forum in late April in Orlando to explore "monetization, including leasing" of Alligator Alley. Alligator Alley is the nickname adopted as a real name for the east-west highway on the southern end of I-75 - a 125km (78 mile) 2+2 lane expressway that runs from the northwestern suburbs of metropolitan Miami due west across the peninsula to Naples on the Gulf coast.

Spanish international infrastructure companies dominate in the initial statements of qualification for the big Jacksonville Florida "First Coast Outer Beltway" toll concession. Florida DOT released the details of the four groups that have submitted Statements of Qualifications, the first step.

It's official, after many premature reports, Florida has adopted sticker tags: they have passed extensive performance testing, inluding dual mode tests at the Transcore test facility in Albuquerque New Mexico and at a FTE test site, and a big contract has been signed. Failing any last problem, the tags should be available and getting stuck onto windshields in the big peninsula state from July onward.

Thirty "NO TRUCKS LEFT LANE" signs are going up on 65km (40 miles) more of Florida's Turnpike. Enforcement of the truck ban will begin Feb 1 with tickets of $130.

The new stretch with cars-only left lanes extends from the Golden Glades Interchange just north of Miami to Lantana Toll Plaza (MP88). The Lantana Toll Plaza is the southern end of the central ticket system of the Turnpike.

Florida DOT has the America's largest private toll concession on the go with a request for qualifications (RFQ) for investor groups to finance, design, build, operate, maintain and toll a 74km (46 mile) $2.2b highway on the southwest edge of the Jacksonville area. The project involves a long river crossing, 14 interchanges and ten more overpasses. Called the First Coast Outer Beltway (FCOB) the project is a consolidation of two earlier projects:

Florida Turnpike Enterprise will be making a "yea or nay" decision on adoption of sticker tags in about four weeks time, according to Evelio Suarez, their director of toll operations. He told us that there is just one final batch of tests to be run. Turnpike staff are in Albuquerque NM to see tests by TransCore of SunPass type transponders working in tandem with SeGo sticker tags in a multilane open road environment.

Florida DOT have provided us with some more detail on their assessment of the value of three possible toll facilities to be put out for bid by investors. We've got "Possible leases of existing toll facilities" a five page screed dated 2007-09-05. It says the Sunshine Skyway Toll Bridge in Tampa, Alligator Alley Naples to Ft Lauderdale, and Beachline East expressway are "most likely candidates for consideration."

Florida Gov Charlie Crist is seriously considering longterm toll concessions, the Orlando Sentinel reports, on three Florida DOT properties bringing in between $1.12b and $2.92b. The three being considered are:

- Beachline Expressway FL527 which runs as a "bee line" between Orlando and the Atlantic coast (it was formerly called the Bee Line Expressway)