LEE COUNTY, Fla. — The booming growth in Southwest Florida is putting stress on some of our most popular roads and Lee County is making changes to get ahead.
The Cape Coral Bridge will be getting an extension, and Wednesday night FOX 4's Bella Line attended a workshop where drivers weighed in on the plans so far.
Safety, congestion, and capacity were the main things Rob Price, Director of the Lee County Department of Transportation, says helped make their decisions in the designs that will take the Cape Coral Bridge from 4 lanes to 6 lanes.
Watch Bella's full report below.
"Initially, when we were going through this project, this was just a replacement of the bridges with the four-lane bridge. We looked at the need for additional capacity due to growth, and that's what urged the county commissioners to direct us to go ahead and move forward," said Price.
They will be adding 10-foot wide mixed-use trails on both sides of the bridges. Price says their current expected cost is around $300 million.
"We are implementing a lot of the safety features that have been installed on Sanibel and in Pine Island after Hurricane Ian. Stronger seawalls that will protect the bridge approaches, so that we would hopefully not see any of the type of damage we saw after Hurricane Ian on the new bridge," said Price.
However, some neighbors on the Fort Myers side had some concerns for the traffic it will bring since the stoplight at the base of the bridge west of McGregor Boulevard could be taken out.
"They're widening the bridge because they acknowledge there's going to be substantially more traffic in the coming decades, but they're not equating that to the substantially more traffic on this ramp," said Bradford Webb, a resident at the Caloosa Yacht and Racquet Club.
Others were excited to see the county taking into account the growth many have noticed over the years.
"There will be some inconvenience, but, you know, it's called growing pains. So I think it's something that's necessary," said John Masucci, a resident at the Caloosa Yacht and Racquet Club.
The County says their studies showed that if nothing were to be done with the current bridge it would last another 20 years, but with the new bridge it would increase that to 75.
People can make comments on the plans until September 11. The County says you can leave comments online, just click here.
