The Old Florida Heritage Highway Symposium Produces Thoughtful Discussions on Transportation and the Environment

The Women’s Transportation Seminar (WTS) hosted its annual Transportation Symposium on Wednesday, October 19, 2016 at the Reitz Union on the UF Campus. The event  focused on the Old Florida Heritage Highway, a corridor running along US 441 in North Central Florida, which incorporates elements of carefully managed transportation engineering, planning and wildlife conservation ecology.

Kathleen Pagan, a planner with Alachua County, was one of the panelists invited to speak on this subject. “The WTS Symposium allowed local byway leaders and UF faculty to share knowledge and expertise in order that more of the UF community knows about the benefits and design qualities of scenic byways,” she said.

Pagan added that the Old Florida Heritage Highway project has continually worked to find innovative ways to “enhance, preserve and promote the scenic roads, state parks and preservation lands in southeast Alachua County.”

According to the Florida Scenic Highways website, the 48- mile long network of scenic roads includes 12 miles along US 441 from Williston Road to the Marion County line and 36 miles of Alachua County Roads. Access to recreational, historic and Florida’s cultural heritage is found along these roads, including Paynes Prairie State Preserve, UF’s Lake Wauburg, the City of Micanopy, the M.K. Rawling State Park, small lakes and rural homesteads. The sides of the country roads along this corridor offer refuge to sandhill cranes during their winter migration; bald eagles can also be spotted. Recreational activities along the Old Florida Heritage Highways include bicycling, hiking, horse riding, camping, bird watching and canoeing.

Dr. Perran Ross is an associate scientist with the UF Department of Wild Life Ecology and Conservation. He is also the current president of Friends of Paynes Prairie.  Ross, who was also an invited panelist, spoke about the importance of “carefully managed transport planning” to ensure that plants and wildlife along the scenic byways are preserved. He described how a 2-year study in the 1970s quantified the mortality rate of reptiles and amphibians on US 441.

“The eventual result was the design and construction of the Paynes Prairie Ecopassage, effectively walling the berm to prevent access to the road by small animals and also providing several underpasses for both wildlife and water flow,” Ross said. “A camera study in the 1990s demonstrated a steady flow of critters including alligators, bobcats and at least one bear through the underpasses.” The good news is that road mortality of reptiles is absent and visitors can safely view alligators located at specific locations along the Paynes Prairie passage on US 441.

Steven Scanlan, PE, who is the Operations Program Engineer for the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) in Gainesville, has been associated with the management of the Old Florida Heritage Highway for a while now. As an invited panelist, he said the conversation among the panelists and audience was thoughtful and centered on coming together to resolve the issues related to the scenic byway.

“The WTS symposium was a professional, well rounded and informative presentation and discussion of the Old Florida Heritage Highway from some of the competing interests sometimes encountered around the Scenic Highway program,” Scanlan said. “These different perspectives also demonstrated how they could work together for a common goal as they did with the design and implementation of the Paynes Prairie Ecopassage.”

The symposium attracted students from transportation engineering, urban planning, wildlife ecology and history. Stephen Spana, a first year doctoral student in the transportation engineering program at UF, came away with a better understanding of the harmony that must coexist among engineers, planners, and conservationists when designing or improving a stretch of road.

“It was interesting to see the discussion of a transportation project from the point of view of a conservationist and an engineer, and to get an idea of the harmony that must exist between the two in practice,” Spana said.

What the Old Florida Heritage Highway shows us is that there is more to transportation engineering than simply designing a road. The planning stage for building highways and roads should take into consideration its natural flora and fauna.

“Appreciation for human cultural and aesthetic needs, wildlife impacts (both direct and indirect), and broader landscape perspectives, all need to come forward as the plan is developed rather than afterthoughts once the bitumen is laid,” Ross said.  “I am glad to say I do not see my transport engineer and planner colleagues as the enemy, but rather as partners and participants in integrating human and animal ecology into the highway design.”