OCALA, FL (352today.com) – Growth, aging infrastructure and capacity challenges to accommodate the denser volume of traffic are among the concerns that most directly impact commuters.
The Marion County Office of the County Engineer is working toward making things smoother, including a number of resurfacing projects to make life less bumpy. Flexibility and adaptability to making these plans progress in a timely fashion means adjusting to various timeframes so the project can be completed.
“We try to be as flexible as we can with our contractors on the resurfacing projects,” said Steven Cohoon, Marion County engineer. “There are certain areas that we want to restrict as to when they can work as an example. 484 at peak season, I don’t want a contractor out there working in the middle of the day. We do try to do that, but at the same time, if we give enough flexibility to our contractors where we can and when we can, those calls come down. That gives the county relief, our taxpayers dollars go further as well. So, it’s a little bit of a balancing act with all of those different scenarios. For us to fix the roads sometimes, it’s a little bit of an inconvenience for a short amount of time. We try to limit that for everybody.”
Banyan Road Extension
One of those projects that has been talked about in southeastern Marion County is the Banyan Road Extension. Part of the reason it hasn’t moved forward is the series of challenges making it a difficult feat for the work itself to get accomplished, said Cohoon. This includes coordinating with another jurisdiction, like the Florida Department of Environmental Protection…