{"id":185969,"date":"2026-03-10T17:48:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T17:48:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/185969\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T17:48:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T17:48:11","slug":"driving-around-orlando-can-be-a-pain-in-the-asphalt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/185969\/","title":{"rendered":"Driving around Orlando can be a pain in the asphalt"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was fitting that I pulled up the story \u2014 \u201cDoes Orlando have the \u2018worst roads in America\u2019<\/a>?\u201d \u2014 while stuck in traffic.<\/p>\n

My wife was driving. But even if I\u2019d been behind the wheel, the congestion was so thick, I probably could\u2019ve read the entire article during all the standstills and still had time to do the Sudoku.<\/p>\n

Even more annoying: We were on a toll road. Yes, in Florida, you pay for the privilege of getting in gridlock. The region\u2019s Expressway system seems anything but \u201cexpress\u201d to any weekday driver who\u2019s ever braved the 408 around downtown Orlando at 7:30 am or tried to get on the Western Beltway around 5 p.m.<\/p>\n

Really, though, congestion is just the start of the long list of Orlando\u2019s driving annoyances. If I were staging a Frank Costanza<\/a>-styled airing of grievances, I\u2019d also note that we have a shortage of smart and smartly timed traffic lights.<\/p>\n

How many times have you been on the road at 2 a.m. \u2014 not another car in sight \u2014 and still been stopped by every other stoplight? Most of our traffic lights aren\u2019t just not-smart, they\u2019re downright dumb.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s our road-repair projects. Some take longer than it took to construct the Empire State Building. Literally. When the city decided to redo one-mile, two-lane stretch of Bumby Avenue, it took 20 months<\/a> \u2014 longer than it took to construct the 102-story building back in 19-freakin\u2019-29.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s not a one-off. Just ask the poor businesses that suffered more than a year\u2019s worth of disruptions in Ivanhoe Village<\/a>. Orlando seems to do road repairs like a contractor during hurricane season who\u2019s in no hurry because he knows you don\u2019t have other options.<\/p>\n

Not all of our problems are homegrown. Webster\u2019s actually defines \u201cfrustration\u201d as \u201cBeing stuck behind a tourist from Toledo who slows to gawk at every man-made volcano and Mickey Mouse-shaped power pylon<\/a> Orlando has to offer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Admittedly, \u201cOrlando\u201d gets blamed for collective traffic frustrations from Kissimmee to Longwood. But the region is all part of one big pot of transportation stew. And congestion here keeps getting worse with delays hitting a record high<\/a> in 2024 when drivers wasted an average of 68 hours in traffic.<\/p>\n

Days\u2019 worth of gridlock: Orlando\u2019s traffic delays break new record<\/a><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t believe for a moment Orlando is really \u201cthe worst.\u201d Try driving around New York or Silicon Valley<\/a>. There\u2019s a reason many folks there don\u2019t even have cars.<\/p>\n

And frankly, if you want to talk about nutty drivers, Orlando isn\u2019t even the nuttiest city in Florida. That honor goes to Miami where, virtually any time you pull onto Interstate 95, it feels like you\u2019ve entered a \u201cFast and the Furious\u201d simulation with souped-up, neon purple Supras zipping in and out of lanes at 110 mph.<\/p>\n

Still, the list of traffic annoyances in Orlando doesn\u2019t end with congestion, stupid stoplights and molasses-slow repair work.<\/p>\n

We also have more miles of tolled roads<\/a> than any other region in America and generally anemic transit options.<\/p>\n

Despite all that, the story in Monday\u2019s Sentinel suggested Orlando had the \u201cworst roads\u201d for yet another reason \u2014 potholes and general disrepair.<\/p>\n

According to Pep Boys, a higher percentage of its customers in Central Florida come in for wheel alignments, suspension work and single-tire replacement than anywhere else, suggesting our roads are rough on cars.<\/p>\n

Does Orlando have the \u2018worst roads in America\u2019? Pep Boys says yes<\/a><\/p>\n

Honestly, I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve encountered more poorly maintained roads in these parts than I have elsewhere. But there is one intentionally suspension-rattling aspect to driving in Central Florida \u2014 brick streets.<\/p>\n

Some people find them quaint. Others are convinced that they\u2019re a cruel joke cooked up by traffic engineers who threw in a side order of potential ankle-spraining for good measure. Personally, I\u2019m a brick basher. I understand they\u2019re often meant to be a traffic calming device. But give me a hump, bump or roundabout any day of the week.<\/p>\n

Plus, some brick streets are worse than others. I won\u2019t call out any city by name, but one local town that rhymes with \u201cFinter Fark\u201d has brick streets are so particularly teeth-rattling that they feel like they were designed by a dental-implant shop.<\/p>\n

Grievance-airing aside, there are some things we can do. We need roads that meet existing demand vs. roads that just encourage more development \u2014 and, consequently, more congestion. (For Exhibit A, google \u201cSplit Oak<\/a>,\u201d \u201cdevelopment,\u201d and \u201cOsceola Parkway.\u201d)<\/p>\n

We need to invest more in transit, including this region\u2019s pathetically under-funded bus system<\/a>. (If leaders cared half as much about Lynx for locals as they do the convention center for visitors, this problem would be solved.)<\/p>\n

And we need urgency in our construction projects, for the sake of both the residents and businesses.<\/p>\n

Visit Orlando gets $96 million. Lynx gets $54 million. That\u2019s messed up | Commentary<\/a><\/p>\n

I also hope some of this region\u2019s more progressive transportation thinkers look more into smart traffic lights that can adjust to traffic patterns in real time. I mean, if A.I. is going to take all our jobs and generate deep fakes that make people think Taylor Swift is hawking cookware<\/a>, the least it could do is also save you from wasting time at a red light when no one else is around.<\/p>\n

We can do more than just gripe. In the meantime, though, watch out for the potholes and tourists from Toledo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was fitting that I pulled up the story \u2014 \u201cDoes Orlando have the \u2018worst roads in America\u2019?\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":185970,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[11148,2275,28,139,141,140,43499],"class_list":["post-185969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-congestion","tag-downtown-orlando","tag-florida","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-traffic-lights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185969","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=185969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}