Broward Boulevard bridge scheduled to open Thursday
Traffic jams around an Interstate 95 interchange in Fort Lauderdale might finally be unsnarled after vexing drivers for a year and a half.
The rebuilt Broward Boulevard bridge between Northeast 15th and 18th avenues near downtown is scheduled to open Thursday morning.
It can’t come too soon for some who live and work in the area and say rush hours are a grind.
Doris Sipos was stuck on the northbound ramp to Broward Boulevard for about an hour recently because work on a gas line
narrowed three lanes down to one just west of the bridge.
“I have never in my 20 years in Broward County seen such a mess,” she said.
And it’s no better on Broward Boulevard.
“I was heading west from downtown,” said Ozzie de Faria, of Weston. “It was backed up, and it probably took me 40-45 minutes when it should have taken me 5-10 minutes tops.”
Traffic should pick up speed because drivers won’t have to squeeze through bumpy lanes on a temporary bridge surrounded by construction. They will travel in a straight line on wider lanes.
“The volume of traffic that is able to get through will remain the same,” said project spokeswoman Dayana Diaz. “But motorists might see an improvement in their commute time.”
The bridge had been expected to open Monday, but the addition of a permanent concrete median on the bridge pushed back the date to Thursday morning.
An estimated 157,000 vehicles travel Broward Boulevard between Federal Highway and I-95 every day, according to state statistics.
The construction is part of a $16 million project to replace the aging bridge, repave a worn roadway and rebuild sidewalks and other infrastructure along the rest of Broward Boulevard.
Work began in October 2016 and is scheduled to be completed this summer.
Among the changes, there are three 11-foot-wide lanes in each direction, a wider median and new bicycle lanes and sidewalks.
Boaters won’t have to duck as much. The new bridge rises 8 feet above the North Fork of the New River instead of 4 feet, 9 inches. There is also a new walkway and water main under the bridge.
Street light installation will continue to close some lanes overnight. There will be drainage improvements, new curbs and gutters, bus shelters and traffic signal upgrades.
The asphalt-covered steel bridge that leads to such a bumpy crawl won’t be around much longer.
“The temporary bridge will remain on site and will be disassembled over the next few weeks,” Diaz said.
Joseph Ghattas owns South Florida Jeeps just east of the bridge and sees thousands of vehicles idling in front of his business every day. He can’t wait for construction to end.
“It’ll be fantastic,” he said. “We’ll get traffic flowing again.”