Opinion

The Milton and Bagdad Riverfront Master Plan, completed in 2015, presents a grand vision for the future of The City Where Good Living Flows, a vision of a vibrant waterfront entertainment district.

It imagines a walkable mixed-use community with shops, restaurants, parks, a boardwalk extending between the two communities, and public river access, all embracing the historic downtown of a 19th-century river town.

It’s almost impossible to understand it if you weren’t here then.

One April morning in 2010 the Gulf of Mexico exploded. Hundreds of millions of gallons of oil roared up out of an undersea volcano and smeared across 70,000 miles of ocean.

Well, they’re going to try. The Milton City Council is gambling $100,000 from reserves – taxpayers’ money – that it can stop the state from widening Caroline Street through the historic district.

The council voted 6-2 to advertise for bids on a study to determine alternatives to a Florida Department of Transportation plan to widen U.S. Highway 98 – Caroline Street – from two to four lanes between Stewart Street and Ward Basin Road.