MARION COUNTY, Fla. – Central Florida residents are all too familiar with road construction, but a project along State Road 484 near I-75 has seemingly come to a halt.
Marion County resident Brian D. reached out to News 6 to help him find out why the project is taking so long.
Brian said he doesn’t feel safe driving on the road with all of the construction and said it seems like nothing is getting done.
“The traffic is such a nightmare,” Brian said. “If we drive this at 1 o’clock in the afternoon, even into the evening, the traffic is so terrible that getting through can take a half an hour just to get to I-75.”
Businesses along County Road 484 said they believe the construction is impacting their bottom line.
“What worries us is, like, month by month, the construction was so slow and so delayed,” said owner of Country Lane Tack Luis Acosta. ”You see now, you don’t see anybody working on those, on that project for the last year.”
Acosta said customers are having a hard time getting to his store because of the traffic.
“When you have cars just piled in front of you that just cannot access here it is,” Acosta said. ”You know, people don’t bother to come here.”
We reached out to the Florida Department of Transportation and asked them several questions about the project.
They sent us a statement, which said:
“Improvements on County Road (C.R.) 484 were temporarily paused as the project needed to go through a redesign to better work with the upcoming I-75 Moving Florida Forward project that intersects with that area. Active construction has not happened for many months. The good news is that work is expected to resume within a month for portions of C.R. 484 at I-75 that will help reduce congestion at the interchange.
FDOT is expected to open new exit lanes from I-75 at C.R. 484 within six months. The southbound exit ramp from I-75 to C.R. 484 will have two left turn lanes and two right turn lanes instead of the one turn lane in each direction. The northbound exit ramp will have two left turn lanes instead of one, and the C.R. 484 eastbound turn lane onto northbound I-75 will be extended to allow more capacity. The planned widening of C.R. 484 is still on hold as FDOT works with local governments to finalize future plans for this interchange.
For details about the C.R. 484 project, please visit its project page: 433651-1 CR 484 from SW 20th Avenue to CR 475A. And for more details about the Moving I-75 Forward project, please visit this website: Moving I-75 Forward."
Florida Department of Transportation