Lyons widening west of Lake Worth set for 2018
Q: A recent Sun Sentinel story reported that Lyons Road will be widened from Lantana Road to near Twigg Road. That’s about halfway to Lake Worth Road, which means the road will go from two lanes to one lane in each direction. This will become a bottleneck especially since there is a school there. When will the rest of Lyons to Lake Worth Road be widened?
A: The Palm Beach County Engineer’s five-year road plan for county roads includes $5 million to wide Lyons to two lanes each way from the L-14 Canal to Lake Worth Road in fiscal 2017. That’s up one year from previous plans.
The county also is budgeting $2.5 million to widen Lyons to three lanes from Lake Worth Road to the L-11 Canal to fiscal 2018.
Q: When will hybrid cars no longer be able to use the express lanes for free?
A: By September 2017, Florida is required by federal law to take another look at the special exemptions that hybrid, electric and other low-emission vehicles receive.
Those vehicles can ride in highoccupancy vehicle lanes with only one person in the car from 7 to 9 a.m. and 4 to 6 p.m. weekdays. And they can also use the express lanes for free, provided they are registered with the state and display a decal.
During the past five years, the number of HOV decals has grown from 6,127 in 2009 to more than 14,000 in 2014. The bulk of those registrrations are in South Florida.
The concern is that these extremely fuel-efficient vehicles will overwhelm I-95 lanes that are supposed to have free-flowing traffic.
Q: What can be done to make the outside eastbound lane of Northeast 26th Street at U.S. 1 a designated right-turn-only lane? On any given day, 90 percent of the cars in the lane are turning right. One vehicle going straight stops traffic for the duration of the red light, then after crossing the intersection through traffic must immediately merge to the left because 26th Street narrows to one lane eastbound.
A: Eastbound through movements outnumber right turns by a nearly 2-to-1 ratio, according to a recent analysis of traffic counts by Broward County traffic engineers.
The intersection operates best this way with the current lane designations, they say, and no modifications are being recommended.
mturnbell@tribpub.com, 954-356-4155, Twitter @MikeTurnpike, Facebook at SunSentinel.com/concreteideas