Becker Road questions still blurred

By CHRIS YOUNG
Residents hoping to get clarification of the city's plans for expanding Becker Road were disappointed Thursday evening at a public hearing for the Becker Road interchange with Interstate 95.

They said they were generally in favor of the interchange, but questions they asked about the impacts of the interchange went unanswered.

"What's going to be at the dead-ends (where streets now intersect Becker Road)? Will there be something to keep noise down?" resident Eric Brown asked after the hearing, echoing a previous query.

"The study is taking too long — it's putting us in limbo," Claudia Gentile told officials at the meeting. She wondered how the delay would affect the value of residents' homes.
An informational meeting will be held this month or in September to address those issues, said Tanzer Kala, engineer with Keith & Schnars, the firm designing the interchange.
About 50 people showed up for the hearing, the last chance for public input on the interchange before workers break ground early next year.

Officials said the interchange, plus another at I-95 and the Crosstown Parkway, will reduce traffic on Port St. Lucie and St. Lucie West boulevards and ease future congestion on I-95 at those interchanges. The two interchanges are planned to be finished by 2009, but Becker Road might still be a two-lane road by then, according to City Engineer Walter England.
Plans for the Becker Road widening are a couple of months behind schedule, but city staff is working on a four-lane design by the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council.
The City Council is scheduled to discuss whether to buy 187 lots and three acres of undeveloped land required for that plan at Monday's council meeting.

That design includes roundabouts, but a funding source hasn't been identified, said City Manager Don Cooper. It could cost $24 million to buy all the land, he wrote in a memo to the City Council.

The two interchange public hearings will be shown at 5 p.m. every day from today to next Thursday on PSL-TV20. The channel is available to Adelphia and Hometown Cable Plus subscribers in the city.

• Cost: $15 million.
• Construction start: early 2007, finish 18 months later.