FORT MYERS BEACH, Fla \u2014 The final step of construction on Estero Boulevard starts next month, shortly before season hits. Drivers say while they\u2019re excited to see Ian-damaged roads finally being fixed, traffic is a concern.<\/p>\n
Watch to hear what the project will bring to Estero Blvd, and what neighbors had to say about it:<\/p>\n
Final Estero Blvd repairs set to start as Fort Myers Beach braces for traffic<\/p>\n
Work is already happening along Estero Boulevard, but now comes the final touches. Lee County approved an $8.4 million contract to replace more damaged sidewalks and curbs, plus add new flashers for pedestrians. All of this was damaged by Hurricane Ian.<\/p>\n
Lee County says work can only happen during the day because of turtle nesting season and how close crews are to neighborhoods. Neighbors expect that to make their drive a lot slower.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Austin Schargorodski<\/p>\n
Construction on Estero Blvd<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019ll be interesting in another month, when season really kicks off, just how bad it is,\u201d said Donna Melito.<\/p>\n
\u201cTraffic is bad in season anyways. So to add that to it \u2014 not working at night and only doing it in the day \u2014 is really going to have an effect on the traffic on the island,\u201d said Kimberly Gaynett.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Austin Schargorodski<\/p>\n
Kimberly and Robert Gaynett<\/p>\n
Kimberly and Robert Gaynett have called the island home for 40 years and say they\u2019ve learned to adapt when construction slows things down, often trading their cars for bikes.<\/p>\n
The county says crews will shift traffic lanes and use flaggers to keep cars moving, but backups will still happen. They say the work is expected to start in November.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll be okay. We\u2019ll rebuild. It\u2019s just gonna take time,\u201d said Gaynett.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT MYERS BEACH, Fla \u2014 The final step of construction on Estero Boulevard starts next month, shortly before…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23133,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,17853,1127,17852,29,2848,17854,6027,3741,356,3789],"class_list":["post-23132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-concerns-with-estero","tag-construction","tag-estero-boulevard","tag-florida-news","tag-fort-myers-beach-florida","tag-ft-myers-beach","tag-hurricane-ian","tag-infrastructure","tag-lee-county","tag-reconstruction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23132","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=23132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}