FDOT Pulls Support for Davis/MLK Two-Way Conversion — City Redirecting Nearly $400,000

Pensacola, FL (NewsRadio 92.3) -- A years-long effort to convert Davis Highway and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard from one-way to two-way streets is effectively over after FDOT District 3 told the city of Pensacola it will not support the project.

Public Works and Engineering Director Amy Tuttle told city council Monday that FDOT's Chipley office made the decision after the city had spent years waiting on survey data from FDOT's own resurfacing project — data the city needed to move its design work forward. The survey never came, and when city staff pressed the issue earlier this year, FDOT told them directly that it did not support the conversion.

The financial reality made the project impossible to salvage. FDOT wanted the city to pay the cost difference between a standard resurfacing project and the more complex two-way conversion — a gap that includes traffic signalization, new pavement markings, geometric changes, and a roundabout. Construction cost estimates for the project had been rising steadily, and the city had no construction dollars allocated. On top of that, FDOT wanted the city to take permanent ownership of both roadways, a long-term financial commitment the city was not prepared to make.

With no viable path to a finish line, the city halted design work to avoid spending additional funds on a project that couldn't be completed. The $393,464 in American Rescue Plan Act funds originally earmarked for the design and plans production for the conversion is now being redirected to the Main Street Flooding and Adaptation Project, where it can be spent before the federal year-end deadline.

The two-way conversion of Davis Highway and MLK Boulevard remains listed as number 10 on the Transportation Planning Organization priority list but currently has no funding mechanism to advance. Councilman Charles Bare said Monday he has additional comments on the situation he plans to share at Thursday's regular council meeting.