CRESTVIEW In and next to Crestview, which already is Okaloosa County s largest and most-populated city, several subdivisions containing a total of more than 2,000 single-family homes are either being built or are in the late planning stages.
Many of the residents of all of those new houses will, of course, add to the traffic congestion on already busy roads such as State Road 85.
While the developers of some of the new subdivisions plan to upgrade streets next to their projects, far greater traffic relief is expected to come via the ongoing southwest Crestview bypass work and the planned widening of a long segment of SR 85.
“At this point, we’ve got so many people vaccinated or the opportunity to vaccinate, and I think it’s really a personal choice whether we wear masks or not at this point,” Ketchel said at the meeting in Crestview.
In response to a question from commissioners, county Public Safety Director Pat Maddox said more than 70% of residents age 65 and older in Okaloosa County have been fully vaccinated, and that the county’s daily virus-positivity rate is down to the 3% to 6% range.
As of early Monday morning, more than 45,000 of Okaloosa County’s 201,000 or so residents had been vaccinated, according to state Department of Health data.