LAKE WORTH BEACH — The days of waiting more than 10 minutes during rush hour to get off Interstate 95 onto Sixth Avenue South should be over by the end of 2025, when state transportation officials say the two-year-long project to upgrade that exit and the roads around it will finish.
Here are the upgrades that the Florida Department of Transportation says drivers and locals will see once the project, started in November 2023, is done:
- A second right turn lane from Sixth Avenue South onto I-95’s southbound on-ramp.
- An exclusive right turn lane for drivers going west on Sixth Avenue South onto I-95 north.
- 6-foot-wide sidewalks on Sixth Avenue South’s eastbound lanes.
- 7-foot-wide bicycle lanes on both sides of Sixth Avenue South.
- Signs on I-95’s entrances warning wrong-way drivers to turn back and warning other drivers that such drivers have gotten on the highway.
- Wrong-way alerting system that tells Florida Highway Troopers where wrong-way drivers are.
- 16-foot-tall anti-noise walls.
- Widened Sixth Avenue South medians, repaving, new pedestrian crossing signals and moved underground Lake Worth Beach utilities such as water pipes.
- A longer left turn lane on South A Street onto Sixth Avenue South, which should free up northbound traffic on the side street.
What work remains?
The contractor on the project, The Ryan Cos., is working on the wrong-way detection system, state Transportation Department spokesperson Meredith Cruz said. The system will be tested this summer, she said.
The company must also widen the highway ramps and medians, and install the new pedestrian signals, road signs, street lighting, drainage and walls, Cruz said.
How are conditions now at the Sixth Avenue South highway exit?
Road construction has closed all but two lanes on each I-95 exit ramp. This can cause traffic jams backed up the full length of the ramps onto I-95 during rush hour…