Work began Thursday on a major roads project aimed at reducing traffic congestion in Volusia County.
Reconstruction of the Interstate 95 interchange at U.S. 1 in Ormond Beach launched one year ahead of schedule, Gov. Ron DeSantis said at Thursday’s groundbreaking ceremony. The project is one of 20 planned congestion-relief projects included in the governor’s Moving Florida Forward initiative.
Seven of those projects are planned for Central Florida.
DeSantis said the Ormond Beach interchange, originally built in the 1960s, is one of the state highway system’s oldest.
The upgraded interchange will have three new bridges, plus redesigned loop ramps that will make it easier and safer for drivers to enter and exit I-95, according to the Florida Department of Transportation. Both the northbound off-ramp and southbound on-ramp will be extended and widened, giving drivers more time to adjust their speed.
On U.S. 1, the $130 million project will also include widening a one-mile segment of road between Plantation Oaks Boulevard and Destination Daytona Lane, plus the addition of a new shared-use path for bicyclists and pedestrians.
During construction, lane closures will be limited to nighttime hours to minimize impacts to the traveling public, according to FDOT.
Both DeSantis and FDOT Secretary Jared Perdue credited the governor’s Moving Florida Forward program for expediting planned interstate projects like the one now underway in Volusia. The program proposed by DeSantis and approved by state lawmakers in 2023 sets aside $7 billion, including $4 billion in general revenue funds, to speed up transportation infrastructure projects.
“We saw an opportunity, because we had so much [general revenue] surplus, to be able to look at the pressure points around the state, identify the projects that were necessary …. [and] surge the cash,” DeSantis said.
Originally, work to upgrade the Ormond Beach interchange was slated to start sometime in the 2030s: a timeline initially ramped up to 2027 and, ultimately, to this year, DeSantis said.
“This is not the ‘road less traveled’ for me. I've been up and down these exits for many, many years, and this was not always my favorite exit to get off,” DeSantis said. “So when they brought this [project] to me, I was like, ‘Absolutely, we've gotta do it.’”
Perdue also touted FDOT’s new design-build process, called Modified Phased Design-Build, for helping speed up interstate projects. Key to the process is FDOT’s selection of three firms — not just one — to handle the design contract for a given project.
