Heartland Parkway

The Heartland Parkway is a proposed toll road to be operated by Florida's Turnpike Enterprise. The proposed toll road would run approximately 110–150 miles (180–240 km) along a north-south alignment from Interstate 4 near the Polk-Osceola County line in central Florida to the Fort Myers–Naples area of southwest Florida, through rural portions of Polk, Hardee, Highlands, DeSoto, Glades, Lee, and possibly Collier counties. A 12-mile spur would connect the parkway with the Polk Parkway south of Winter Haven With cost estimates ranging from $3–8 billion, support for the construction of the parkway has ebbed and flowed. Former Florida governor Jeb Bush was a proponent of this parkway, but his successor, governor Charlie Crist never expressed interest in its creation.

Florida is prone to hurricanes, and many widening projects and proposed highway corridors have focused on the need to facilitate large volumes of traffic away from the coast. At the present time, only Alligator Alley and several two-lane rural roads are able to transport the millions of people living in Collier, Lee, and Charlotte counties away from the coast.

Currently, the only viable north-south trucking route away from the coast is U.S. Highway 27. In Polk County, that highway is seen as the deadliest road in the county in part due to the large volume of truck traffic and high speeds. Its popularity amongst truckers stems from its intersections with several major highways and its avoidance of major cities. The Florida Department of Transportation claims that truck traffic in Florida will double by the year 2020.

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