“Wood said the expansion study will explore routing the parkway into Marion County, where it would link to I-75. But that would not ease I-75 traffic in Alachua County, where many residents use the interstate as a speedier way to get around city streets.”
Note: The Alachua County Commission at one time tried pass approval of a highway circling Gainesville, so that I-75 could bypass Gainesville altogether, and people could easily travel this highway to bypass the congestion of downtown. The effort failed because the County Commission felt that if they built the bypass along the Kelly power route, that the city would build out to it.
Instead the City/county have decided to reduce four lane roads through downtown Gainesville to two lane so as to encourage regional transport and pedestrian/bicycle travel. A lot of road taxes go into these efforts.
A further note: why not have the last exit traveling north in Marion or Levy Counties, and the next exit in Columbia County north of Gainesville.
One issue that will bear on this is that a large port is being developed north of Tampa for super container ships, that now can travel through the Panama Canal, since its enlargement recently. The state wants a rail/highway corridor northeast from the Tampa area to Jacksonville on the east coast.