Cynicism grows for road project costing millions in Fort Myers

More construction means more headaches for drivers trying to make their way down busy McGregor Boulevard.

The project, costing more than $3 million, won’t be done until Spring 2024, and critics say once the project is done, the traffic won’t improve. Others are unsure what the project accomplishes at all.

If you live or own a business on McGregor Boulevard from Cypress Lake Drive to Edinburgh Drive in Fort Myers, then you know the struggle drivers experience when it comes to congestion and accidents is not up for debate.

“There’s an accident, I’d say, one a month,” said Salvatore Lanzieri, the owner of Judy’s Antiques and Estate Jewelry.

“It’s kind of unsafe for traffic in general,” said John Murray, an independent consultant on McGregor Boulevard.

Those safety concerns are why Patricia Pichette, with the Florida Department of Transportation, said the department knew this safety improvement project needed to be done.

“FDOT does crash monitoring, and we saw some crashes in this area,” said Pichette. “It looked like it was turning into a potential problem, so we did a crash study and looked at the crashes between 2014 and 2018. And from that study, we created a design of how we thought that we could improve it.”

The issue is nearby business owners are not happy with the improvement.

A raised median will extend from Cypress Lakes Drive to just south of College Parkway on McGregor Boulevard, and they think this opens the door for more problems.

“It’s making a mess, because they’re going to cut off anyway, of getting into the store, the U-turn is going to be all the way down the street,” said Lanzieri.

“As far as big trucks getting into other businesses, it’s going to be a problem,” said Nicholas Clemens, the owner of Chilled Auto Air and Repair.

“It’s already kind of a congested and kind of problematic intersection, so any work on it does just make it that much more difficult to traverse through,” said Murray.

Those business owners also told WINK News that FDOT couldn’t have picked a worse time to begin construction on the road.

They said it’s one of the busiest times of the year when it comes to traffic in the area, and they can already see how the barricades are creating even more of a traffic nightmare.

If you want to follow along with the construction project and see where work is being done throughout the duration of construction, click here.