Changes could be on the horizon for the busiest intersection in Boca Raton; Glades Road, near I-95.
Monday, FDOT will present a plan to the Boca Raton City Council. It calls for adding lanes to parts of a 2-mile stretch of Glades Road from Butts Road to NW 13th Street.
Another aspect is to build a flyover type of bridge taking westbound traffic on Glades Road over Airport Road and directly onto I-95 north.
"I'm here almost every day," explains Yolene St Juste.
She took us for a ride Friday afternoon. We didn't hit many bumps taking Glades Road West over I-95, but St Juste says that's rare.
"Every day it's accident, accident, accident," she says.
Ask those who drive the road often and they agree; that stretch of Glades is not fun.
"It's always congested. I've been hit by other cars in this intersection," says Corinne Rea.
FDOT's proposed fixes include widening the road to eight lanes in some areas. But those lanes wouldn't run through the entire length of the road. Plans show they'd be used more as ways to feed traffic onto the interstate.
City stats show an average of 88,000 cars pass through the intersection of Glades and Airport Roads every day, making it the busiest intersection in the city. Palmetto Park Road and I-95 is second on the list averaging 59,000 cars a per day.
"I think any way you can take Airport Road traffic and get it out of the way, or I-95 traffic out of the way, would help. I see a lot of confused drivers," Rae says.
The plan would require moving power lines and maybe building new bridges. But St Juste says it once it's all over, it would make running her errands a lot easier.
"It will save everybody a lot of time," she says.
FDOT will present this plan to the city council Monday afternoon to get some feedback and figure out how to move forward.
The city passed a resolution in 2014 to keep Glades Road from expanding to eight lanes. This plan would widen Glades into eight lanes in certain areas to connect the road to I-95 entrance ramps.
As it is, the project would cost about $50 million and would start in 2021.
