We finish up our extensive look at cancelled expressways in the state with a look at the panhandle.

We discuss cancelled expressways outside large urban areas and in fast growing sprawlish counties in the peninsula.

The University of South Florida was almost turned into an expressway-driven concrete jungle. Students and the USF community fought back. But those were just a few of the roads that planners envisioned in the Tampa Bay area that had to be fought by neighborhood activists in the 1970's, 1980's and 1990's.

We continue our look at neighborhood activism and college rebellions against concrete highways by discussing several cancelled road projects in the Orlando area during the 1980's and early 1990's.

The Sawgrass Expressway exists today but it's merely a fragment of what was originally planned. This is a story of condo commando power, FAU student activism, knocking on from the University of Miami-related activism we talked about in the previous podcast (Sawgrass Expressway was a replacement for the "University Expressway which was to run from UM to Northwest Broward and then connect toward FAU via the "Deerfield EXpressway). It's a story of neighborhood rebellions, a poorly managed expressway project and the activism of some legends in the condo world.

Ever wonder why power lines are in certain places in south Florida. Easy answer...the surface road the run along was meant to be an expressway. Why did all these super highways never get built? Community opposition and an environmental awakening.

We discuss that this week on the podcast.

The 50-year struggle (ongoing) to protect the spring and horse country against expressway building in North Central Florida is discussed this week.

We discuss the sprawl created by the extension of I-75 beyond Hillsborough County. The road created major sprawl in Southwest Florida leading to the rapid development of gated and exclusive communities in the area that helped tilt Florida toward the GOP.

It also created a new western suburban corporate culture in Broward County that shifted jobs away from the core city areas of Fort Lauderdale and Miami toward I-75.

The road replaced Alligator Alley across Big Cypress and the Everglades erasing what was an environmental blight and a death trap for Florida Panthers and other animals and created a virtual 70-mile causeway that helped restore proper water flows in the ecosystem.

We discuss I-10's avoidance of the southside of Tallahassee as an early and rare win for black political power in Florida during the 1950's, 60's and early 70's. We also talk about how the move of I-10 north has in time created more problems for Tallahassee. Additionally, we discuss the building of I-110 through Pensacola and how it decimated that black community.

We discuss the ripping apart of urban neighborhoods in Central Florida by I-4, I-275, I-175, and SR 408.