I-75 construction and crash leaves drivers in standstill traffic

Stuck, frustrated and late for work. Not the best combinations.

A sea of morning drivers were trapped in standstill traffic on Interstate 75 North on Thursday because of a crash and a construction project that continued to go past 6 a.m.

That’s the hour the Florida Department of Transportation agreed to stop work each morning.

Very inconvenient, according to Sergio Rivera, a trainer from Collier County. Like so many others, he got stuck and was late to work. In fact, he played catch-up all day.

“It adds extra stress because you wake up and you’re like, geez, it throws your whole day off, so you have to re-strategize,” he said.

So, why was traffic on a random Thursday during the off-season so bad? The answer: a perfect storm of traffic nightmares.

First, a crash at I-75 North and Pine Ridge Road.

Even though this happened at 6 a.m., crews didn’t clear everything up until hours after the peak of the morning commute. What was even worse was construction, closing two lanes of I-75 well into the morning commute, work that was supposed to wrap by 6 a.m.

The construction didn’t clear until 8:30 a.m., two and a half hours behind schedule.

Less than two weeks ago, on July 12, the exact same thing happened in almost the same spot, but on I-75 South.

FDOT gave no heads-up to drivers that day or Thursday morning, leaving drivers late, frustrated and trapped.

We reached out to FDOT for a response, and they said, “The contractor’s resurfacing operation was adversely delayed last night due to weather issues and an unforeseen equipment failure. This, along with an accident that occurred around 6:15 a.m. within the travel lane of the construction zone, delayed the lane closure removal and impacted all the travel lanes on I-75 Northbound.”