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Suburban Boca Raton residents concerned about street-widening project

Posted at 10:25 PM, Apr 25, 2018
and last updated 2018-04-26 04:44:24-04

Residents who live along SW 21st Street and Lyons Road in suburban Boca Raton are not happy.

For months construction crews have been working to expand the road to add another lane. For some, the space between cars and homes is too close for comfort.

It's not the construction that bothers Mallissa Rivero. It's what comes after.

"This is absolutely a safety concern," Rivero said. 

Those who live inside the River Oaks community say they were never told about the Lyons Road expansion, until they saw the construction crews. 

WPTV was told by HOA that the county reached out to them about the project.

"They took a five-foot hedge that we had around our whole community and they took that out because they said it was county property," one neighbor said.

At the Lyons Road SW 18th Street intersection there have been six crashes since the start of 2017, in five of these crashes, people were injured.

"When it was two lanes, I had just had a lady come through. We had bushes like and she came through the bushes and missed my house by two feet," another neighbor recalled. 

Homeowners wrote several letters to commissioner Mary Lou Berger about building a protection wall.

We're told that’s just not feasible right now. Some are now choosing to leave.

WPTV reached out to Palm Beach County's Engineering and Public Works office. A spokesperson for the office told WPTV they did not have a specific statement at this time. However, they did say they will monitor safety concerns.