GROVELAND, Fla. – Three major accidents. Three road closures. This has all led to growing frustration for drivers who say State Road 19 in South Lake County is becoming a traffic nightmare.
Drivers along State Road 19 near Groveland had to sit and wait Thursday night after an accident shut down the road. It’s one of three road closures drivers have had to endure following crashes over the past two weeks.
“State Road 19, in one word. What would you say? A cluster. I can’t say the rest,” said Tyler Halbert, a Leesburg resident.
“You just have to find ways around it. Like I said, I work right there, so it makes it harder. If I have to go the other way, I’m late to work,” said Malachi Wayman, a Lake County resident.
“It holds you up. I was only three minutes away from my neighborhood, but because of the accident, I had to turn around and go through Villa City to get back to Emma because there was no other way to get home,” said Brittany Mosley-Joyce, a Groveland resident.
It’s why many are calling for more safety measures and improvements along the corridor.
The Florida Department of Transportation is already studying this more than nine-mile stretch of State Road 19 between State Road 50 and County Road 455. They’re also considering widening the road from two lanes to four.
“At least having extra lanes of travel would be very helpful, especially for people like us who live in this neighborhood. There’s really only one way in and one way out,” said a resident.
FDOT confirms they’re adding a traffic light at the Cherry Lake intersection by early next year, and says the project development and environmental study should be complete by late 2027.
“I think it would help everywhere. We’ve got so many people moving here, but the roads are the same as they were 15 or 20 years ago. It just doesn’t work,” said Halbert.