The Lake-to-Lake Regional Trail: Conceptual Study

Lake-to-Lake Regional Trail ArcGIS story map by FGTF Board Director Brandyn Littleton.

In the 2023 session of the Florida Legislature, SB 106 was passed with a unanimous vote in the Senate and House and was signed into law by Governor DeSantis. This game-changing legislation included integrating the Florida Wildlife Corridor with the Florida Department of Transportation’s previously established SUN (shared-use nonmotorized) Trail system. The legislature also doubled trail funding to the Florida Department of Transportation from $25 million annually to $50 million.

The legislation mentioned two primary reasons for this: (1) to better educate Floridians and visitors to Florida as to the significance of the state’s ongoing investment in conservation properties needed to complete the Florida Wildlife Corridor; and (2) to encourage eco-tourism and agro-tourism in Florida’s rural areas by connecting Trail Towns to beautiful landscapes and places. The Trail Town Program is a Florida Department of Environmental Protection program that recognizes cities and towns in Florida with vibrant trail systems. 

In response to this extraordinary legislation, the Florida Greenways & Trails Foundation (FGTF), in collaboration with the Florida Wildlife Corridor Foundation (FWCF), agreed to undertake a research project to explore the possibility and practicality of linking the paved Coast-to-Coast Trail on Lake Monroe in Sanford to the Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail around Lake Okeechobee in the City of Okeechobee. This prospective corridor threads through the Eastern Florida Wildlife Corridor and could provide controlled public access via universally accessible paved trails to hundreds of thousands of acres of natural landscapes and remarkable wildlife areas little known to most Floridians outside the hunting and fishing communities. Last year, FGTF and FWCF each contributed $5,000 to fund this six-month research effort. Dale Allen, FGTF’s immediate past president, served as the project manager. 

Dale Allen, Lake-to-Lake Regional Trail project manager, presents the research findings for the project at the 2025 Florida Greenways & Trails Summit.

Extensive field work and meetings with local trail enthusiasts revealed that several historic railroad corridors — the Kissimmee Valley spur of Flagler’s East Coast Railroad and the Peavine Railroad from Kenansville to Lake Okeechobee — still exist, although greatly altered by time and loss of segments to modern roads and highways such as US 441 and Florida’s Turnpike. Further research revealed that segments of this prospective trail were already under development and, if connected by a regional trail, could provide additional justification for existing underpasses and/or land bridges over existing or proposed highways.  

The research effort generated an enormous amount of information and important insights from people who were interviewed. With all this information in hand, Mr. Allen partnered with staff from the Tampa office of Halff, a professional firm with extensive experience in park and trail planning, to develop a web-based story map. The story map is formatted as an imaginary journey along the Lake-to-Lake Regional Trail, called such because it would connect Lake Monroe to Lake Okeechobee. FGTF and FWCF released the research findings and story map to the public at the 2025 Florida Greenways & Trails Summit that was held on February 5-6, 2025, in Venice, Florida.

The findings of the initial research effort were so encouraging that an additional phase of research work has been funded with a generous grant from the Felburn Foundation. This will involve extensive coordination with local government officials, metropolitan planning organizations, regional planning councils, and other parties to determine if there is sufficient interest in advancing the project through the existing state-approved processes with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the Florida Department of Transportation. Local government support will be required for making projects happen.

FGTF is excited to serve as a catalyst by identifying prospective trail opportunities. FGTF is aiming to complete the study by the end of 2025.