Drivers in North Fort Myers are frustrated as a major construction project on Pondella Road causes long traffic lines and dangerous detours through residential neighborhoods.<\/p>\n
Residents are concerned about the reckless driving they observe as motorists try to bypass the construction.<\/p>\n
“I’ve seen people drive through here like they’re driving on I-75, not a care in the world for children that are sitting on that stop ready to go to school,” said Martin Amparo, a local resident. “I’ve seen people walk by here just to go to work and get hit just unintentionally, because people don’t have a care for pedestrians.”<\/p>\n
The construction is taking place on Pondella Road, from the base of the Edison Bridge to the major four-way intersection connecting to North Tamiami Trail.<\/p>\n
The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) has closed the right turn onto North Tamiami Trail from Pondella Road, necessitating several detours to access the Edison Bridge.<\/p>\n
Drivers now need to turn right onto River Road and then left onto Cabana Avenue to reconnect with North Tamiami Trail and the Edison Bridge.\u00a0<\/p>\n
FDOT says the detours and closures are essential for reconstructing and widening parts of the intersection, installing new drainage structures, and adding pedestrian hybrid beacons for safer road crossings.<\/p>\n
The pedestrian hybrid beacons are a different type of traffic signal at crosswalks, with two red lights on top and a yellow light underneath.\u00a0<\/p>\n
John Gurdock, an employee at First Motors of North Fort Myers, shared his concerns.<\/p>\n
“I’ve seen a lot of people having to slam the brakes. People are trying to come out of here with the lane shut down,” he said.<\/p>\n
Amparo echoed similar sentiments, stating that “not all the time those lights or those intersections are supervised. People will just think, ‘Oh, there’s no cop. We’re gonna gun it.'”<\/p>\n
FDOT says these beacons are effective for areas with three or more lanes of traffic and speeds above 35 miles per hour, which applies to this road section.<\/p>\n
The detour is expected to last through December, with the entire project anticipated to be completed by early 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Drivers in North Fort Myers are frustrated as a major construction project on Pondella Road causes long traffic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70875,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210],"class_list":["post-70874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70874","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=70874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70874\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}