Jackson is 54 mikes east of lazy river resort. ontario is 31 mikes south of jackson. a land developer prioress building a shortcut to directly connect ontario and lazy river. show calculations

That shortcut would be a diagonal route.  The horiz. leg would be 54 miles; the vertical one would be 31 miles.  Using the Pythagorean Theorem, we get distance d = sqrt( 31^2 + 54^2) = sqrt( 3877 ) = 62.3 miles.