Hopefully, an Interchange Justification Report (IJR) is currently being developed. It is about a 12 month project. FDOT has identified funding for next fiscal year to complete a Planning, Development and Environmental (PD&E) study for the area that the IJR identifies. The study is targeting a connection to the I-75 corridor somewhere from Everglades Boulevard east to Desoto Boulevard. The studies will determine if an additional interchange is warranted but it is too early to determine exactly which roadway the interchange will be centered on.

The term “concurrency” means that the necessary public facilities and services to maintain the adopted level of service standards are available when the impacts of development occur. Chapter 163, Part II, Florida Statutes and Rule 9J-5, Florida Administrative Code require each local government to adopt, as a component of its comprehensive plan, objectives, policies and standards for the establishment of a concurrency management system. Said system shall include a program that ensures development orders and permits are issued in a manner that will prevent reductions in service levels below the adopted level of service (LOS) standards for the affected facilities.

Up until March of 2004, Collier County addressed the above requirement by way of an Annual Update and Inventory Report, which is a comprehensive planning method of annually balancing the capacities of the county’s infrastructure systems against increasing levels of consumption.

In 2002, citing rapidly increasing vehicle traffic volumes in the county and concerned that an annual reconciliation was not adequate to keep track of the amount of road capacity consumed by new development, the Board of County Commissioners directed staff to develop a real-time transportation concurrency management system that tracks and allocates available roadway capacity on a continuous basis. Pursuant to the Board’s direction, staff developed a computerized program and rules and procedures for analyzing the traffic impacts of new development. This system allows staff to track the remaining balance of capacity of each major road segment much the same way one maintains a personal checking account, thus the term “Checkbook Concurrency.”

The Growth Management Department will approve a Traffic Capacity Reservation at application pending approval of the first to occur final sub-division plat, site development plan or building permit for a proposed new development. Said approval occurs upon acceptance of a Transportation Impact Statement (TIS) submitted as part of a complete application request package, provided reserve capacity is still available on the affected road segments. The TIS must quantify the peak hour, peak direction trips to be generated by the proposed development. The Traffic Capacity Reservation secures concurrency for the development on a first-come-first-served basis (based on the date/time of submittal) while the development order is under review; and will expire in one year from TIS approval and concurrency determination unless the development order is approved or the Board approves an extension beyond the one-year time period.

A Traffic Capacity Reservation will be “awarded” to the development in the form of a Certificate of Public Facility Adequacy (COA) upon final approval of the development order and payment of road impact fees and any proportionate share payments that may be required. A separate COA application from shall be submitted with the original application request package for the development order.

Transportation Concurrency Management Areas (TCMA) and Transportation Concurrency Exception Areas (TCEA) are alternative concurrency management systems authorized by Florida Statutes to regulate increased traffic volume created by new development while also promoting affordable housing and redevelopment programs as well as development policies designed to control urban sprawl. These systems are used to manage growth-related impacts to transportation facilities on an area-wide basis rather than on a link-by-link basis.

A TCMA comprises a compact geographic area with existing or proposed multiple, viable alternative travel paths for common trips. It supports the provision of more efficient mobility alternatives, including public transit, and features an area-wide level of service standard as the basis for the approval of final local development orders.

There are two TCMAs, the Northwest TCMA and the East-Central TCMA . To maintain concurrency, each TCMA shall maintain 85% of its north-south lane miles and 85% of its east-west land miles at or above their adopted LOS standards.

A TCEA is designed to reduce the adverse impact transportation concurrency may have on urban sprawl control policies and redevelopment. One such area was established for the county. Development located within the boundaries of the South U.S. 41 TCEA is exempt from transportation concurrency requirements so long as impacts to the transportation system are mitigated using Transportation Demand Management strategies enumerated in the LDC.