I-4, S.R. 408 interchange is massive, gives new way to look at Orlando
The newly rebuilt link between Central Florida’s two busiest roads, Interstate 4 and State Road 408 in Orlando, has been overshadowed by the COVID-19 pandemic and George Floyd protests, but it is monumental on several levels.
The interchange was decades in the making. It cost nearly $1 billion, far more than any building in the city. And it’s an enormous upgrade for drivers, removing them from weaving through congested pinch points and now has them “fly” at expressway speeds on elevated ramp lanes varying from four stories to 12 stories high.
The assembly of ramps looks impressive, mounted on robustly proportioned columns and carried by bridge beams that appear massive compared to standard steel girders. Ramps curve as they rise or descend, diverge or converge with other ramps and otherwise visually affirm what they are called: “flyover” ramps.
Joe Berenis, who retired last year from the Central Florida Expressway Authority, where he was chief of infrastructure, offered some history about the beleaguered old interchange — and praise for the new one. The tollroad agency is a co-owner with the state of the interchange.
He said motorists will no longer have to endure a 1960s technology that was obsolete by the 1990s and a nightmare by the 2010s as the “double trumpet” of daily aggravation.
“I think it is very easy to drive,” Berenis said of the new interchange, the majority of which opened late last month.
Berenis, who worked for the agency for 31 years, said the old connection was built in the early