PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla. — Residents in the Loxahatchee area are preparing to attend a public hearing Friday on an idea to widen 140th Avenue and 40th Street in the Loxahatchee area.
"Right now it's just an idea but an idea can turn into a plan," William Abbey said.
He and his wife Carolyn have lived in a Loxahatchee home for 24 years.
"Our biggest concern would be possibly losing our home and having to leave," William Abbey said. "The impact that it would affect, you’re talking environmental, you’re talking community impact, traffic impact, wildlife impact."
Last Wednesday, the Palm Beach County Planning Division presented an idea to alleviate traffic in the area by widening 40th Street to 80 feet from 140th Avenue North through State Road 7, which would need to be connected.
The expansion is on the northern border of Royal Palm Beach.
"Staff does not have a formal recommendation at this point and it's important that we hear from you to help formulate that," Joanne Keller, the Palm Beach County deputy county engineer, said during the meeting.
The expansion would nearly quadruple 40th Avenue, impacting nearly 80 homes along the road, according to William Abbey.
"It brings too much traffic. They'd have to take our land. It would be ridiculous," Carolyn Abbey said. "We want to stay here forever. This is our forever home."
The Abbeys said traffic in the area has increased over the last couple of years, as people living in areas like Westlake commute through their roads to travel east.
"Everything's a drive unless I go to Publix down the street," Westlake homeowner Ryan Shust, who often drives through the Loxahatchee area, said. "Everything else I’m driving 30 minutes for."
He said the idea to help with traffic by widening 140th Avenue and 40th Street could cut his commute in half.
"Hearing this proposal, would it benefit people living here like yourself?" WPTV reporter Joel Lopez asked.
"I just don't think that a road that they're proposing right now would be able to alleviate too much traffic," Shust said. "Everyone in that area is blaming Westlake. Like OK now they're adding another road. Putting another road through a residential city to alleviate the thousands of houses that they're building out here does not solve anything. It just bothers everybody."
He said he isn't in favor of impacting residents in Loxahatchee and that the focus should be on expanding existing major roads such as Northlake, Southern and Okeechobee boulevards.
"They're just talking about having us go through the back, to the side and then straight back to State Road 7," Shust said. "They're not addressing that half those roads are dirt still. They're not addressing that it's currently I think a 25 mph speed limit. No one is going to want to take that."
Palm Beach County Planning and Building staff members emphasize the road-widening idea is not official yet as there will be a public hearing Friday when the advisory board will make its presentation to county commissioners.
That will take place at 9 a.m. at 2300 N. Jog Road, Vista Center.