By David Bauerlein
Times-Union staff writer

A change in City Hall's transportation planning that was spawned by the Better Jacksonville Plan will make it less costly for development to proceed in traffic-clogged parts of the city.

The policy change will reduce what some developers pay in the "fair share" program, which requires developers to help bankroll the cost of road widening if their projects will add traffic to overloaded roads.

The change means some roads could be regarded as being available to handle more capacity a full three years before work on widening the road actually begins.

To the extent the decreased cost will make it economically easier for developers to move forward sooner with new projects -- such as shopping centers, subdivisions and office parks -- it will add to traffic congestion until the roads are actually widened.

Some members of the City Council are concerned about that.

Transportation planners changed the policy in August. Council members said they were unaware of it and want an explanation from administrators.

Councilwoman Elaine Brown said the Better Jacksonville Plan, which voters approved in a half-cent sales tax election in September 2000, won public support by pledging accelerated roadwork to bring traffic relief.

"The Better Jacksonville Plan said, 'Look at the end of the tunnel and see the light down there,'" said Brown, chairwoman of the transportation committee. "It didn't say, 'But in the meantime, we're going to make it more difficult for you to see the light at the end of the tunnel.'"

"I do have a real concern about that," said Councilwoman Suzanne Jenkins, who also serves on the transportation committee.

Previously, transportation planners did not upgrade the capacity of a city-maintained road until the year City Hall earmarked funding for construction to start. That was because the city used pay-as-you-go financing, so the funding wasn't guaranteed until it was OK'd in the yearly budget.

The $2.2 billion Better Jacksonville Plan changed that funding structure because it enacted a 10-year, fully funded plan for a list of projects, including $1.5 billion for transportation.

"Now, it's 10 years with the Better Jacksonville Plan that you're locked in," said Denise Bunnewith, who heads the transportation planning division.

She said planners decided on the three-year standard because that's what City Hall uses for state Department of Transportation projects in Jacksonville. Once funding for road widening gets into the third year of the state's work program, it's virtually assured the money will be there for construction to start that year.

The Northeast Florida Regional Planning Council also relies on that three-year standard for state-funded roadwork, and it's used across Florida for state projects, said Brian Teeple, executive director of the planning council. Teeple said the rationale is that it takes time for developers to get financing, obtain permits and complete construction before their projects begin generating more traffic on a particular road.

"I think it recognizes the reality of timing the growth with infrastructure availability," Teeple said. He acknowledged that it does allow for congestion to worsen before a road is actually widened. "It's not a perfect science."

Even with the new standards, developers will still likely have to make fair share payments in traffic-heavy areas of the city, Bunnewith said.

A case in point is a large shopping center planned by Jacksonville-based Sleiman Enterprises at Atlantic and Kernan boulevards in east Arlington. The plans show a Wal-Mart Supercenter and other retail space.

The project will require a hefty fair share payment of about $1.1 million because of the additional traffic to be added to Atlantic Boulevard at rush hour.

However, the city will not require a fair share payment in connection with traffic on Kernan Boulevard because the Better Jacksonville Plan has earmarked funding to start widening the two-lane road to four lanes in the 2004-05 fiscal year. That puts it within the three-year window, so the city's transportation planning division shows Kernan as a four-lane road with available capacity for more development.

If the city had not made that change for Kernan, the road would have lacked traffic capacity for the retail center. That would have triggered a fair share payment of roughly $1.5 million in addition to the $1.1 million for Atlantic Boulevard.

Ruth Highsmith, who lives in a subdivision off Kernan Boulevard, said she voted for the Better Jacksonville Plan because she hoped it would solve Kernan's ever-worsening traffic woes. Instead, she foresees traffic getting worse, particularly after construction of a new elementary school and middle school off Kernan is finished in a year.

The Better Jacksonville Plan's schedule of road project calls for the city to first widen Hodges Boulevard and then start construction of more lanes on Kernan Boulevard in April 2005, finishing it in April 2007. The city doesn't want to have both Hodges and Kernan under construction at the same time because they are parallel north-south roads through east Arlington.

But Highsmith said if the development is going to keep coming, the city should begin work sooner, despite construction-related delays for drivers.

"I do see that as a problem, but I would prefer to do them both at the same time," she said. "Let's go in and get it over with because it will be better in the long run."