Florida Lawmakers Advance $1.8B Road Funding With Treasure Coast Projects in the Mix

Florida's House and Senate have agreed to direct nearly $1.8 billion to the Florida Department of Transportation for road construction as part of a special session budget conference — a spending level that could shape highway projects across Martin, St. Lucie, and Indian River counties for years.

The money feeds Gov. Ron DeSantis's Moving Florida Forward initiative, a four-year, $7 billion infrastructure push he launched in 2023 aimed at compressing project timelines that might otherwise stretch into the 2030s or beyond. For Treasure Coast drivers who navigate I-95 and U.S. 1 daily, the program's pace matters: FDOT's district covering this region has several corridor improvement projects in varying stages of planning.

Lawmakers returned to Tallahassee this week after the 2026 regular session ended in March without a budget — a rare failure of the Legislature's only constitutionally required task. The special session budget conference is continuing, and the $1.8 billion figure reflects where both chambers currently agree, though no final vote has occurred.

The clearest sign of the program's accelerated timeline came last month when DeSantis announced that an I-95 and U.S. 1 interchange project in Ormond Beach, Volusia County — just north of the Treasure Coast — will break ground in 2026, a full year ahead of schedule. The governor credited Moving Florida Forward for the acceleration.

"These wouldn't even be on anybody's radar for the rest of this decade had we not done our Moving Florida Forward initiative," DeSantis said at the news conference.

Florida's infrastructure pressure is real. The state surpassed New York in 2014 to become the third-most populous state, and tourism traffic compounds the strain — Orlando alone logged a record 76.7 million visitors in 2025.

Which specific Treasure Coast projects would receive funding from this $1.8 billion allocation remains unclear, and FDOT's final project list will depend on the completed budget. Residents can track local FDOT District 4 project updates at the department's online work program portal.

The budget conference is expected to continue through May. A final vote by both chambers would send the spending plan to DeSantis for his signature.

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