Airport expansion, new SunRail stops on way
|
Central Florida’s transportation landscape will be littered with construction cranes and orange traffic barrels in 2017 — all signs of changes to come.
Perhaps the most noticeable of these changes will be at Orlando International Airport where construction work on addition of a south terminal is expected to progress this year.
“You’re going to see, I think, the transition from a lot of projects up in the north to focusing on the south,” said Phil Brown, the airport’s executive director. “So you’re going to see the whole vista, the whole terrain of the south change.”
The projects will be particularly visible to passengers on trams or while using Orlando International’s south exit between the existing terminals and State Road 417.
The first phase of the south terminal, with a cost of $1.8 billion, is expected to open in the second quarter of 2020, being delayed from an original 2019 opening because steel is at a premium. the the new track will cost $186 million, with 50 percent of that from the federal government, 25 percent from the Florida Department of Transportation and 25 percent from local governments.
The Meadow Woods Station in Orange County will be near South Orange Avenue and Fairway Woods Boulevard; the Tupperware Station in Osceola County will be near Osceola Parkway and Michigan Avenue; the Kissimmee Station will be near Broadway Street and Monument Avenue; and the Poinciana Station will be near Orange Blossom Trail and Poinciana Boulevard.
SunRail backers hope the solutions to ridership, which has been sluggish since the commuter system started in 2014, are more hours of operation and more stations in Central Florida.
Much of the addition will allow a top train speed similar to that in parts of Seminole County: 79 mph.
While freight and passenger trains have long used track between Orlando and Kissimmee, SunRail officials are getting out the warning that trains will cross roads every 30 minutes.
“It’s a communication that never stops,” said Nicola Liquori, director
As SunRail grows this year, the remaking of Interstate 4 through the heart of Orlando will began to change the city’s skyline.
The $2.3 billion project, dubbed “I-4 Ultimate,” is entering the third year of an expected nearly seven years of design and construction.
Loreen Bobo, who oversees the I-4 work for Florida DOT, said $135 million has been paid so far to the project’s builders. Payments began only recently because DOT wanted to ensure that builders “had skin in the game,” Bobo said.
The deadline for completing the 21 miles of work, from Kirkman of the commuter system. Road southwest of downtown Orlando to State Road 434 north of the city, is March 2021.
The addition of four toll lanes will be the biggest change. The interchange with State Road 408 in Orlando will begin to emerge this year with soaring ramps and lanes; the tallest bridge will be 10 stories high.
Shifts of lanes will continue, dictated by demolition of old highway and the building of new bridges and roadway.
“I liken it to reconstructing your house while you are still living in it,” Bobo said.