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Apr 13 2010

Florida stimulus spending: DVDs, buses and more - reporters notebook

The images are breath-taking. Incredible sunrise scenes along palm-tree lined Atlantic coast roads. Flamingos and alligators sitting peacefully not for from highways.

The video showcases several of Florida's dozen or so "scenic highways." And thanks to a near quarter million dollar grant from the Federal Government, the Florida Department of Transportation is updating the production.

Available for free on YouTube, DVDs of the near six-minute video are also supposed to be available in Florida Welcome Centers across the state.

"They're very popular," Joyce Davis said at the Florida Welcome Center just across the state line in Nassau County. "We just gave them all out. And we got another supply and then we gave all those out."

"So what if I wanted one today?," I asked her at the counter.

"You couldn't get one," she replied.

Davis thinks the DVDs is a great use of federal funds. She says about a million visitors stop by the Florida Welcome Center in Nassau County every year, and taking in the Florida's natural beauty is a huge draw for out-of-towners.

"I hadn't heard of that one," Don Winstead, the state's stimulus chief, said of the DVDs last month. "The money I'm aware of that goes to the Florida Department of Transportation is primarily being used to build roads and bridges. I think building roads and bridges is the best use of transportation dollars."

Hard to argue with that. And, by and large, infrastructure upgrades are the bulk of stimulus spending in Northeast Florida.

The DOT is using $12.9 million to widen Beach Boulevard between Hodges and San Pablo, $26.2 million for a similar project on SR 200/A1A in Nassau County and $7.25 million for upgrades to the State Road 26 overpass in Clay County.

This summer millions more from the Recovery Act will foot the bill for the long awaited 9-B project.

The Jacksonville Transportation Authority got $7.5 million for upgrades to Alta Drive in the Oceanway area.

All of those projects are responsible for job creation in the First Coast. Just drive through any of the construction zones for a first-hand look.

But plenty of transportation cash won't mean jobs in our area; at least not immediately.

The JTA is using a $9 million grant to buy new buses, air conditioning units and updates to bus shelters and the administrative building.

How is that creating jobs?

"Of course when we're ordering new buses, acquiring 40 foot new buses that is going to impact employment," JTA spokesman Mike Miller says. "That means those that make buses are going to keep on working."
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