Thank you for continuing to work with us to oppose the Multi-use Corridors of Regional Economic Significance (M-CORES) Toll Roads Project. Your efforts are helping to save some of Florida’s most important and valuable wetlands and wildlife habitats. 

 

The Florida Department of Transportation received overwhelming opposition to the new toll roads, with 93% of the 9,886 public comments expressing strong opposition to the project.  As public opposition and fiscal reality set in, three bills were filed this legislative session to partially or fully eliminate the M-CORES Toll roads. 

 

The bill that passed, Senate Bill 100 – Highway Projects, sponsored by Senator Harrell, was a partial repeal of the M-CORES project and instead creates programs related to retrofitting existing roadways and adding limited access alignments at congestion points with targeted improvements along U.S. 19 in North Central Florida.

 

While this program still threatens environmentally valuable lands and rural communities in other parts of the state, the South-Central Corridor from Polk to Collier will be eliminated with this bill. That is a victory for our southern wetlands, our water quality, and the Florida panther, which was uniquely threatened by new roads proposed through its vanishing habitat.