As thousands of new luxury homes are planned forWest Boca, the state plans on expanding Florida’s Turnpike to help ease the frequent rush-hour congestion around the Glades Road exit.
Plans are currently being designed to expand the Turnpike from six to eight lanes on a 4.5-mile stretch from the Sawgrass Expressway to north of Glades Road with construction slated to begin in 2025.
But as more and more people move to the area, some West Boca residents feel that won’t produce significant traffic relief and believe the state needs to add an additional Turnpike exit by Palmetto Park Road.
“We need it,” said Sheri Scarborough, president of the West Boca Community Council, an organization that represents hundreds of homeowners associations across the region. “We desperately need that. Something has got to give and it has to be a turnpike interchange.
“Expanding the turnpike absolutely helps traffic flow, but it’s not going to do anything for our traffic at Glades and the Turnpike, Glades and 441, Lyons Road, people coming up from Broward. That doesn’t help us.”
Fed up with traffic
The Glades Road interchange has transformed into a traffic bottleneck for two main reasons: population growth in the western area and its distance from other turnpike exits. To the south, the closest exit is six miles away at the Sawgrass Expressway. The Sample Road exit in Coconut Creek is 10 miles south of Glades Road.
That means for people commuting north from Parkland are more likely to converge at the Glades Road entrance for the turnpike.
To the north, the next-closest interchange is more than seven miles away at Atlantic Avenue.
“We know that so much of our traffic is coming from Broward County and Parkland,” Scarborough said.
Amplifying matters is the current surge in development in West Boca. In the past five years, luxury homebuilder GL Homes has added more than 1,300 homes at private communities Boca Bridges and Lotus. Additionally, the developer has plans to add more than 2,500 new homes at various locations across West Boca amid a scorching housing market.
Frederico Baggio, vice president of the Coral Lakes Homeowners Association, makes a regular commute to Miami since moving to West Boca in 2014 and said he’s seen the congestion around Glades Road get progressively worse.
“For two years I was living a dream,” Baggio said. “I’m still living a dream, but the turnpike has become very, very bad.
“Every day in the morning, it’s horrible. … You have a big line; at least a quarter-mile of cars or more lined up to turn left on the turnpike.”
Traffic concerns have been a constant theme with the ongoing development.
In January, Palm Beach County Commissioners approved GL Homes’ proposal for a 679-home community near Glades Road, in between State Road 7 and Lyons Road, but rejected a proposed access point to the development on 95th Street after receiving pushback from residents, who said it would have created more congestion.
While the West Boca community claimed a victory on that front, they’re fighting an upward battle on creating another turnpike interchange. The state currently has no plans in development for another exit at Palmetto Park Road, Florida’s Turnpike spokeswoman Angela Starke said.
In 2008, the state considered the potential for new interchanges at Palmetto Park Road, Yamato Road and Clint Moore Road, but none of the new interchange proposals were advanced “due to the lack of local support at the time of the study,” Starke said.
Scarborough, however, says she’s meeting with the state Secretary of Transportation on Monday, adding that creating another interchange is “definitely something we are going to be working very hard on this year.”
Additionally, the state has plans to widen the turnpike in other sections across Broward and Palm Beach counties.
Farther east, the Glades Road I-95 interchange, which similarly turns into a traffic nightmare during rush hour, is being completely overhauled.
The interchange is currently being transformed into an unconventional, yet increasingly popular new formation — a “diverging diamond,” making it the first of its kind in Palm Beach County.
A weaving, diamond-shaped pattern, the interchange briefly sends drivers onto the opposite side of the road to allow for safer and easier left-hand turns to and from I-95. Construction is projected to be completed by the end of 2023.
