“Construction is expected to take about four years.”
I don’t know. This seems like an extraordinary long time to construct only 15 miles of a four-lane highway. The Pennsylvania Turnpike was completed in only two years and they had to contend with drilling tunnels through mountains. Plus the turnpike was about 20 times as long as this Suncoast Parkway extension.
The first 160-mile stretch of the PA Turnpike was indeed complete in 2 years. The tunnels already existed, thanks to an aborted attempt to build a railroad; the PA Turnpike merely capitalized on those existing tunnels.
Of course, back then, you didn’t have environ-MENTAL regulations and other regulations to deal with in the amounts that we do now.