Agreed, piecemeal planning is far from what is done here. They have long term plans that are well developed and thought out. The traffic study that was included in the Wildwood council package lists 25K+ homes planned for the southern oaks area, that, at the current sell rate, is roughly 10 years of volume, any planning out that far in the construction business is filled with risk.
What is lacking here is planning by the local municipalities, a prime example is the shameful mess known as Micro Racetrack and Rolling Acres drive. Both make up a major corridors of traffic that failed to be accounted for by the planners in Fruitland Park and Lady Lake. The tax revenue and impact funds that have come from the construction in The Villages is not being wisely spent on beefing up the infrastructure. In other communities they would have to deal not only with additional roads but schools as well. The money not being spent on additional schools in the area should a) relieve substantial burden on other infrastructure construction budgets, and b) the schools that are here should be much better funded than they are, the schools in Wildwood are an embarrassment to all the residents of Sumter County.
The roads and other infrastructure outside The Villages property are the responsibility of the cities and the counties, not the Developer to solve. The Developer is giving both lots of heads up on what is to come.
One more thought on the whole congestion issue. This area cannot be compared in any way to any other urban area. We have no mass exodus of traffic to get to & from work, with over 100K people in the area of which only a few % of us still working and no significant major industries in the vicinity traffic is minimal compared to other areas. There is also no mass movement of people moving to and from any specific area except the rare major event at one of the town squares, shopping and other services are distributed throughout and growing more ever week. Even when there is something going on traffic on the roads are lessened by the utilization of alternate transportation means (golf carts!).
What's the hurry, you're retired!
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