{"id":152674,"date":"2026-02-12T06:37:20","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T06:37:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/152674\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T06:37:20","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T06:37:20","slug":"work-on-magnolia-sets-stage-for-orange-and-rosalind-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/152674\/","title":{"rendered":"Work on Magnolia sets stage for Orange and Rosalind work"},"content":{"rendered":"

ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014\u00a0After seven decades as a one-way street, big changes are underway on Magnolia Avenue<\/a> in downtown Orlando.<\/p>\n

What You Need To Know<\/p>\n

Construction has begun to make Magnolia Avenue a two-way road in downtown Orlando
\n
The road was converted to one direction in the 1950s
\n
Once work is completed on Magnolia Avenue in six months, the city will focus on Orange and Rosalind avenues
\n
Construction to make Orange and Rosalind avenues two-way roads could start late next year<\/p>\n

Construction began this week<\/a> to convert the street back to a two-way road.<\/p>\n

In the 1950s, Magnolia\u00a0Avenue was converted into a one-way street.<\/p>\n

Over the years, it became the main route for LYMMO, the bus rapid transit system for downtown Orlando. With dedicated bus lanes and just a single lane for northbound traffic, it can be intimidating for unfamiliar drivers turning onto Magnolia.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt can be quiet,\u201d said Barbara Hartley, executive director for the Downtown Arts District<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Hartley oversees the nonprofit art gallery CityArts<\/a>, which sits at the corner of Magnolia Avenue and Pine Street.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing in this building, we’ve seen a lot of cars go the wrong way,\u201d Hartley said. \u201cWe’ve also seen cars speeding and a few chases, not that often. But I think having the two-way will help with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

David Barilla, executive director for the Downtown Development Board<\/a> and Community Redevelopment Agency, said the goal is to get traffic to downtown, not through downtown.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we now go ahead and return it to what it was originally designed to be, a traditional two-way roadway, it gives us that opportunity to reactivate the corridor \u2014 to not only introduce it to vehicular traffic, but to pedestrians as well,\u201d Barilla said.<\/p>\n

Gone are the bus lanes. Instead, Magnolia Avenue will be a two-way street, with on-site parking to make it easier to access businesses. The construction already has started.<\/p>\n

Buses will be integrated into the regular traffic lanes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m hoping it will bring a lot more people, and definitely a lot of visibility,\u201d Hartley said. \u201cIt has to because if you have cars going both directions, they’re going to notice the landscape in a different way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once construction wraps up in six months, the city will focus on downtown’s two other one-way\u00a0roads, Orange Avenue and Rosalind Avenue.<\/p>\n

\u201cMagnolia allows us to go ahead and create a detour route so we can start to work on our major north-south corridors, which are Orange and Rosalind,\u201d Barilla said. \u201cYou’ll see wider sidewalks in some spaces. You’ll see on-street parking, and obviously, you’ll see that two-way traffic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Design work begins this year on Orange and Rosalind avenues, with construction expected to start late next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014\u00a0After seven decades as a one-way street, big changes are underway on Magnolia Avenue in downtown…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":152675,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[2173,2175,2176,115,139,141,140,2180,729,2177,835],"class_list":{"0":"post-152674","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando","8":"tag-app-traffic-transit","9":"tag-app-traffic-and-transit","10":"tag-jerry-hume","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-orlando","13":"tag-orlando-headlines","14":"tag-orlando-news","15":"tag-topic-latest-traffic-transit-news","16":"tag-traffic","17":"tag-traffic-and-transit","18":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152674\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}