In 2019, the Florida Legislature approved plans for M-CORES (Multi-use Corridors of Regional Economic Significance), a system of three massive toll roads that together would stretch from Southwest Florida to Georgia. Neither Florida’s taxpayers nor the Florida Department of Transportation requested this project, and many other critical transportation projects await funding.

If the proposed toll roads are constructed, they will pave over more than 50,000 acres of undeveloped land. The ensuing urban sprawl will spread over hundreds of thousands of acres more, thus causing further stress to our limited water supply, destroying habitat for endangered species like the Florida panther, and erasing some of the last rural communities in the peninsula. Our water, wildlife, and way of life are at risk.

This project has already been allocated $135 million by the Legislature, though the independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit Florida TaxWatch organization estimates that the project would ultimately cost over $26 billion dollars over the next 10 years. Not only would this money be coming out of our tax dollars, but many Floridians would effectively be paying twice since the new toll road infrastructure would be subsidized by existing toll roads like the Florida Turnpike.