ORLANDO, Fla. – Drivers in Orlando are seeing another major change as construction workers unveiled the next move in the I-4 Ultimate Project.
Drivers traveling on I-4 east Thursday now have to enter the exit ramp for Fairbanks Avenue about 2 miles earlier.
[VIEW: Map shows eastbound I-4 ramp shift to Fairbanks Avenue]
As part of the giant construction project, Par Street (Exit 86) and Fairbanks Avenue (Exit 87) will combine while road work continues.
Drivers will exit at Par Street, and drive the remaining two miles on an elevated road alongside I-4. The elevated road is being used as a temporary collector access road to make room for additional construction without shutting down needed lanes in the busy near-downtown corridor.
However, for the owner of Hunger Street Tacos, a Mexican food restaurant off Fairbanks, Joe Creech feels like at first it could confuse drivers and could even turn away his customers.
"It's quite a change," Creech said. "We do have a lot of tourists and people coming from out of town that have seen us online and they are coming from the Disney area and that could definitely affect it."
Joe Halbrucker, who lives in a neighborhood off of Fairbanks Avenue, said the new exit and collector road will be better and even ease traffic on I-4 once people get used to it.
"I think it will be good," Halbrucker said. "Just that alone taking those cars off of I-4 that just want to go an exit up or to the next thing without having to get on and off, I think that's going to take a lot of cars off the interstate right there."
The elevated road will eventually be a permanent part of I-4, and both streets will go back to individual exit ramps.
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See a 360-degree view of what the drive is expected to look like while the temporary changes are in place in the video below.