It's time to stop talking about improving State Road 40 and start moving forward to make this heavily traveled highway safer for the motoring public - and yes, the bears and the deer, too.
For a decade, maybe more, state and local governments have been discussing this road. But a long, complicated path must be followed and we haven't even begun to move in that direction.
We've all heard the bureaucratic excuses hundreds of times by now: Traffic surveys have to be done, a need assessment must be documented, and, of course, there must be an environmental study to ensure rare, sky-blue-pink Antarctic curly-toed orchids and all-but-extinct ring-tailed night screechers are no closer than 1,000 miles from this corridor.
OK, so we've exaggerated, but let's get real. The need to add lanes to this highway and improve safety has been apparent for so many years that it's close to negligent on the part of the federal government, the Florida Department of Transportation and local officials that they haven't been more aggressive on this issue.
Worse, there's still so much to accomplish that unless state or federal officials soon step up to the plate and get on with it, 20, maybe 30 years will have passed before improvements that are actually needed today become a reality.
It is admirable that a number of environmentally minded residents are concerned about the affect a high-speed, four-lane highway will have on wildlife in the Ocala National Forest. So are we, and we hope everyone is concerned about Florida's wildlife population. But there are people dying, too, on State Road 40, and being critically injured as well.
Over a three-year time period, 2000-03 there were 330 crashes on this road and 15 deaths. The year 2004 doesn't show any hope for improvement. Three people have already died on SR 40 in the first three months of the year.
Even before consultants took an emergency look at that section of SR 40 between Silver Springs and the Marion/Lake county line, it was readily apparent that a traffic light should be erected at the intersection of State Roads 40 and 19. The same is true of road signs. More are needed. It didn't require a consultant to reach such common-sense conclusions.
Members of the Ocala/Marion County Metropolitan Planning Organization need to press the DOT to expedite these relatively small improvements because they do have the potential of helping reduce the number of crashes.
But nothing short of a four-lane highway, with underpasses for wildlife crossings and fencing to keep animals off the road, will help slow the human carnage.
The state determined years ago that SR 40 should be four-laned and become part of an intrastate system of roads that carry traffic more safely and provide escape routes for Florida's coastal populations in advance of hurricanes or other major storms.
Currently, there is no continuous four-lane east-west corridor between Interstate 10 in north Florida and Interstate 4 in central Florida. It is a visible and worrisome gap in the ability to quickly move large amounts of vehicles out of a threatened area.
Everyone recognizes the problem: too many vehicles and too few traffic lanes, traffic control devices and signs.
Talk is cheap. Lives and limbs are priceless.