The AARoads Blog

Interstate 10 drivers have one less issue to worry about when traveling through the Pensacola, Florida area now. Crews recently finished work on the first of two replacement spans for the Hurricane Ivan-damaged bridges over Escambia Bay. The new span, situated just south of the original bridges, currently carries two lanes of traffic in both directions. That is a temporary arrangement as construction workers continue to build the future westbound-only span just to the north. At the same time, demolition and removal of the original twin bridges is underway.

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A new partial-cloverleaf interchange (Exit 105) opened to traffic on March 12, 2007 between Interstate 75 and Golden Gate Parkway near Naples, Florida. Golden Gate Parkway links Naples with Golden Gate as a four-lane divided surface arterial and the interchange should alleviate some traffic from nearby Pine Ridge Road (Exit 107).

March 26, 2006 view of the interchange construction from Interstate 75 northbound.

Source:

“Golden Gate Parkway I-75 interchange to open Tuesday.” Naples News, March 12, 2007.

Today’s thoughts involve reflections on the Interstate 95 corridor between Florida and the northeast U.S. The reviled freeway in some cases, Interstate 95 suffers from overrunning by travelers headed to/from Florida, a number that increases significantly every year. Respective DOT’s are trying to keep up with growth with various expansion and interchange projects throughout the 800-mile drive from Daytona Beach northward to Washington, D.C. Profiled below are some of the construction projects we’ve encountered over the last few weeks. 

Interstate 95 is rather docile in Volusia County south of Interstate 4, but north of it is a different story. The influx of traffic from Orlando and its array of resort areas puts a crush of traffic on the freeway between Daytona Beach and Jacksonville. Surprisingly not all of this corridor is yet to six-lane capacity. St. Johns and Volusia Counties are already six-lanes, but Flagler County is not. Therefore crews are out working on the expansion of Interstate 95 to eliminate the bottleneck between Interstate 4 and Interstate 295. From the FDOT website, expansion of the 18.6-mile stretch in Flagler County began on March 14, 2005. Completion date is unclear.

In a related project pertaining to the Interstate 95 corridor, upgrading of the Florida 9A (Future Interstate 295) diamond interchange with Florida 202 (J. Turner Butler Boulevard – JTB) is also underway. Florida 9A provides an eastern bypass of downtown Jacksonville as well as a commuter route for southeast Jacksonville. The substandard interchange between the two freeways is the only thing preventing the eastern beltway from becoming part of the Interstate 295 corridor. Upon completion of the $80.5-million project, high-speed flyovers will shuttle motorists between Interstate 295 and the JTB. Work began in July 2005 with a 2009 completion date anticipated.

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On Friday December 5, 2006, the final leg of the Daniel Webster Western Beltway, otherwise known as Florida 429 Toll, opened to traffic in northern Osceola County. Consisting of a four-lane toll road between Interstate 4 (Exit 60) and U.S. 192 (Exit 6), the latest segment of “The 429″ provides a seamless freeway connection between Interstate 4 and Florida’s Turnpike near Ocoee and U.S. 441 (Orange Blossom Trail) at Apopka. In conjunction with Florida’s Turnpike and Florida 408 Toll (Holland East-West Expressway), Florida 429 Toll provides a western bypass route of the Walt Disney World, International Drive, and Universal Studios resort areas of Interstate 4.

Traveling northbound on Interstate 4 at the new tri-level stack interchange with Florida 429 Toll (Exit 60). I opted for Florida 429 Toll north to Florida’s Turnpike east to Florida 408 Toll east to bypass the traffic congestion associated with Interstate 4′s reconstruction at the U.S. 192 interchange and surrounding areas. Despite $3.25 in tolls, that bypass saved me significant time and gas wasted in idling! Photos taken December 30, 2006.

Heading north from Interstate 4, the first interchange along Florida 429 Toll northbound serves Sinclair Road, a local residential through route. Almost a month after its opening, the interchange (Exit 1A) had yet to open to traffic.

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The journey northward took place on a warm November day interspersed with blue and milky skies. We opted for a non-Interstate routing from High Springs northward through Lake City, Homerville, Jessup, and Hinesville, Georgia. That allowed us to see some new roadways, garner a few more counties (we do that obsessive thing too!), and check out a few U.S. highway ends for Dale Sanderson’s U.S. Highway Ends

I won’t bore you with the detailed routing and rather will focus on some of the roadworthy highlights along the drive.

Lake City lies near the cross roads of Interstate 10 and 75 in north Florida. The town is the control point of Interstate 10 west from Jacksonville and east from Tallahassee. You may not think much of it by its presence on the map, but its surprisingly sprawly, especially along U.S. 90 east of Interstate 75 and U.S. 41/441 heading south of town. Downtown meanwhile retains some charm, echoing Lake City’s history as a smaller town no doubt. Pictured here is U.S. 441 (Marion Street) north at U.S. 90 (Duval Street).

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Thanksgiving took me to Pensacola and Mobile for the holiday weekend, and I have a few road notes to share from the way up and travels in the area.

Legitimate Interstate 10 Florida shields found in Freeport at the overlap of U.S. 331 and Florida 20. In all of our years of travel in and around Interstate 10 in Florida, we’ve never discovered any signs with the state name, until now.

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I’m starting this roadtrip summary on day 4, as I have yet to retrieve the photos for Days 1 through 3 from Justin’s laptop. Rather then wait on that, I will just start from the back ala the Washington Trip reports, and focus on the drive from South Carolina back to Florida. The trip overall involved traveling north to visit my brother in South Carolina, and spending daytrips to see Myrtle Beach, Wilmington, North Carolina, and Charleston.

Day 4 starts on the road at around 11 am and proceeds west from Summerville, SC to Interstate 95 on  U.S. 17 Alternate. A little bit about U.S. 17A first: U.S. 17 veers northeast from the Interstate 95 corridor at Yemassee, South Carolina for Charleston and the coast. U.S. 17A provides an overall inland bypass route for the U.S. 17 routing between Yemassee and Georgetown. While Interstate 95 and other freeways have dwarfed the U.S. highway system in importance overall, U.S. 17 and the Atlantic Coast from Savannah northward generally is not served by an Interstate highway. So Interstate 95′s path provides a long-distance bypass of the coast, but does not serve the regional needs such as movements between Savannah and Myrtle Beach. That is where U.S. 17 Alternate comes into play. However the path is two-lanes for the most part, and between Summerville and Moncks Corner, congestion and heavy development rules the road. Traffic counts are relatively low in the rural areas though.

U.S. 15 ends at junction U.S. 17 Alternate within the town of Walterboro, South Carolina. The U.S. highway travels northward from here all the way to Painted Post, New York, and originally continued from there to downtown Rochester, New York.

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In between other things this weekend, we traveled portions of the Orlando Toll Road system and other area surface roads. We drove all of the Western Beltway northbound, portions of Florida 408 Toll in both directions, the Florida’s Turnpike mainline south from U.S. 27 to the East-West Expressway, all of Florida 417 Toll southbound, and various parts of the Orange Blossom Trail, Colonial Drive, U.S. 17 & 92, Maitland Boulevard, etc. Some highlights are below:

The stack interchange between Interstate 4 and Florida 429 Toll is nearing completion. According to our friend Larry, the Daniel Webster Western Beltway opens to traffic during December of this year. This entails the southernmost six miles of freeway between U.S. 192 and Interstate 4.

Looking northbound on Interstate 4 (east) at the future on-ramp to Florida 429 Toll. The ramps await their final coating of pavement, striping, and guard rails.

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If you have been following the updates over the last month at southeastroads.com, you will have noticed that I’ve shifted my focus to the Interstate 4 corridor and greater Orlando. With the Keys pages completed, I wanted to shift my focus back to the Northeast, but in the process with a project at work, I was drawn to the Orlando area and noted that our Interstate 4 guides were vastly lacking. Having good portions of the freeway documented within the last year (some in decent lighting, others in marjinal lighting), I’ve undertaken the process of splitting the existing guide into segments based upon county and also pages based upon direction traveled. Completed as of yesterday evening are east and westbound in Osceola, Orange, Seminole, and Volusia Counties. Polk and Hillsborough are on deck, but are going to have to wait until at least next week. The reason being, we are headed to Orlando for part of the weekend to redocument parts of the freeway network and to drive other parts of the toll road system for the first time.
As of right now, I have very few photos of Florida 417 Toll (Central Florida Greeneway), and some photos (all looking west or south into the sun through a bug splattered windshield) of Florida 429 Toll (Daniel Webster Western Beltway) and Florida 408 Toll (Holland East-West Expressway). Fortunately through the efforts of Justin from the past couple of years, I have many photos to fill in those gaps with. So this weekend I hope to travel the reverse directions of what he did in 2004 to both clinch and document the toll roads that we need at the same time. Mainly, I’ll cover Florida 417 and 429 Toll, and then perhaps some of the more roadworthy arterials too. Florida 528 Toll is covered in both directions by myself and Justin earlier this year and from 2004 (I’ll create a guide for that at some point soon too).

December 29, 2005 look at the Seminole Expressway (Florida 417 Toll) southbound beginning near Sanford. The portions of the toll road system outside of Orange County are part of the Florida’s Turnpike system. Portions of the toll roads within Orange County are maintained by the Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority.

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Let’s enjoy the last day of daylight savings time and take advantage of the 6:48 sunset. On the agenda, the elevated Express lanes of the Tampa Crosstown Expressway (Florida Toll 618), Brandon, and whatever else catches our desire.

The drive begins with a pass through the Florida 60 (Memorial Highway) and Florida 616 (Spruce Street) construction project. Underway is the upgrading of the current substandard interchange serving Tampa International Airport from the Florida 60 freeway. The present interchange involves substandard ramps, weaving traffic concerns, and close proximity to the busy exits with the Courtney Campbell Causeway (Florida 60), Memorial Highway (Hillsborough County 576), and Interstate 275. The freeway curvature coupled with the numerous on and off-ramps placed in a two-mile stretch creates havoc on morning and evening peak travel hours. The result is virtual gridlock and overall sluggishness for hours at a time. Crews are building new flyovers and collectori/distributor roadways to alleviate the problem. During the last two months, the towering pier supports at the interchange have gained steel bridge beams for the eventual flyover to Florida 616 west. The beams now join the earthened ramp approach to the west. The middle pier support however is not complete, so it will be awhile longer before the steel continues east toward the airport.

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