I-4 remake to claim iconic ramp from 1960s

A visual piece of Orlando highway history is going away for the Interstate 4 remake.

Early Monday, construction workers will close the ramp that rises from the right lane of westbound Colonial Drive and curls up and around to merge onto westbound I-4.

To get to the interstate, motorists headed west on Colonial will have to make a left turn onto Hughey Avenue, where they will find a new ramp to I-4 west.

A half-century old, the circular, rising ramp has long been one of the more striking features of the

interstate through the core of Orlando.

“If you look at the photos we have of those loop ramps, Orlando was a smaller, sleepy city compared to today,” state Department of Transportation spokesman Steve Olson said of early 1960s images. “Those loop ramps were there as part of the original I-4.”

The loop ramp at the northwest corner of Colonial and I-4 was mirrored by a similar loop at the southeast corner of the intersection.

That southeast ramp is now gone, removed for construction. But the one at the northwest corner was the more eye-catching of the two.

Carrying more than 7,600 cars a day, it rises from the ground, becoming a bridge over the south end of Lake Concord.

The bridge portion is held up by a snaggle of square, concrete piers. The adjoining area is scruffy and overgrown. A refuge for homeless people is tucked beneath the bridge.

All of that is to be resculpted by the massive construction project, called I-4 Ultimate, slated for completion in 2021.

“A lot of the work up this point has been underground, drainage, utility relocation, bridge-support structures,” said construction spokesman David Parks.

“Now that a lot of that below-ground work is complete, we are able to see changes a lot more dramatically,” Park said. “We are starting to put traffic on permanent configurations.”