Ken Colen, CEO of On Top of The World, urged the city, county and area residents to work on improving the current Ocala transportation network in light of Turnpike extensions that he says will flood the area with traffic.
Colen made the remarks during a presentation to members of the Ocala/Marion Chamber and Economic Partnership on Wednesday morning.
“If we’re going to be able to continue our growth and prosperity, we need a better transportation network,” said Colen.
Colen went on to explain that with the completion of Turnpike extensions over the coming two years, additional traffic would “flood” College Road/SR 200
“You’re going to have a lot of traffic flowing onto 200. Right now, it has the capacity, but it’s going to become more difficult as more traffic filters to get to I-75 and 301. We need good bypass roads,” said Colen.
Colen indicated that the pursuit of improvements to the transportation network would not come at the cost of destroying or displacing any horse farms.
“We can have good roads, and we can preserve the heritage of horse farms. They are not mutually exclusive,” said Colen.
“We’ve got to be proactive and we’ve got to get involved with this,” Colen said. “Pay attention. It’s important. It’s our future.”