Roads remain a major focus as Sumter County’s population continues to explode.
“Economic development activities are a driving factor for transportation planning within Sumter County. The process includes traffic impact models using future land use data contained in the Comprehensive Plans of Sumter County and its five cities municipalities. Sumter County is the lead government entity for the review of traffic impacts from development and responsible for all regionally significant roadways in the long-range transportation planning process,” Sumter County Administrator Bradley Arnold said in a news release.
Sumter County adopted in 2005, a plan for necessary road capacity improvements by the year 2020. These road capacity improvements were formalized in the 2020 Long Range Transportation Plan and 90 percent of all of the roads capacity projects identified in that plan were completed or in the process of completion as of today, Arnold said.
“This high rate of successful implementation of the 2020 Long Range Transportation Plan is rare in the State of Florida and a compliment to the focus of the Board of County Commissioners and its staff,” said Sumter County Commission Chairman Steve Printz.
Sumter County has changed significantly since 2005.
It was already changing rapidly with the boom of The Villages development as Sumter County’s major contributor for population and traffic generation.
In 2005, the estimated population for 2004 was 70,000 and growth projections showed a population of 155,000 in 2020. The 2020 population is now estimated at 132,000 but will be verified by the 2020 Census. The recession temporarily slowed the economy and population growth.
In addition to these capacity projects detailed in the 2020 long-range plan, there were another 20 road capacity improvement projects completed or in the process of completion that were not incorporated in the original 2020 long-range plan.
“Sumter County and the Lake Sumter Metropolitan Organization are working on the update to the next LRTP to sustain and promote more diverse and quality development. This update will include the pre-planning activities found in Sumter County’s Regional Road Agreement adopted in 2018 to continue to spur continued robust, diverse and quality development in Sumter County,” Arnold added.
You can see the entire list of road projects at this link: Road Project List
