CAPE CORAL, Fla. — The push to widen and raise major roads in Southwest Florida continues, and many tell Fox 4’s Bella Line, Burnt Store Road should be at the to top of the list.
"Now is the time to do anything, honestly, because we do have so many people coming to Florida,” said Lance Wissinger, who lives near Burnt Store Road.
Watch Bella's full report below:
The Florida Department of Transportation had the same message for Line.
"This road had a lot of flooding issues, and so we're trying to raise the profile to prevent some of the flooding,” said Steven Andrews, Project Manager.
Andrews says Burnt Store Road could be at risk of being a failing road if nothing is done.
“It’s an evacuation route, the traffic projections for 2045 are very high. They're almost double or maybe triple, and so if we don't do anything now, it's going to be a failing road,” said Andrews.
Wissinger has lived in Cape Coral for more than 20 years and he says this is long overdue with a booming population.
"That road is certainly not going to be able to handle it. It can barely handle what we have now,” said Wissinger.
Right now Cape Coral is asking residents to chime in on what they want.
“We are not in a position to be able to have all this traffic coming the way the infrastructure is set up,” said Wissinger.
He says Burnt Store Road is his evacuation route, along with thousands of other people, so when FDOT showed these FEMA flood maps in the meeting, they were concerning for him.
FDOT says right now they are still in the study phase, so if they are able to prove that this is what the residents and county wants then they would move onto the design phase. That’s when they could decide if more lanes are needed.
