Traffic, construction, potholes: When building bigger roads no longer works

If you’ve watched Solutionaries videos before you know our team has explored a variety of ways to get around safely and efficiently.

But if electric vehicles or commuter trains aren’t an option where you live, that probably means you’re hitting the road.

Widening Highways

Get on Interstate 95 or Interstate 4 and you’ll likely encounter congestion, construction, potholes — or maybe all three.

The average American driver lost 51 hours sitting in traffic in 2022, a 54% jump from the previous year, according to a report by INRIX, a global traffic tracker.

Here’s the issue: thousands of people are moving to Florida every year and our infrastructure is constantly changing to accommodate more drivers.

For example, the I-4 Ultimate Project was a more than $2.3 billion expansion of Central Florida’s highway backbone, complete with new interchanges, bridges and express lanes.

Construction finished in 2022 but with more lanes comes more traffic.

Now, the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) is planning a new expansion project called I-4 Beyond the Ultimate.

So when building bigger doesn’t work, what’s the solution?

Let’s look at Houston, Texas where the Solutionaries team is taking a look at how the city thinking a bit differently.

In Florida, some cities are taking a different approach to the traffic issue.

Instead of bike lanes, Orlando’s Lake Nona neighborhood now has autonomous shuttles to transport people around key destinations around town, such as Boxi Park and the Laureate Park neighborhood village center.

And Lake Nona’s not alone.

Half a dozen Florida communities, including Altamonte Springs, have partnered with a company called Beep.

However, there is one big drawback: speed.

With a top speed of just 15 mph, this solution is only for short distances — so highways are here to stay.

But what about adding new technology to our growing interstates?

Solutionaries correspondent Jenna Zibton is in Virginia where leaders are making changes to a highway that is notorious for gridlock.

Getting Results For Your Tires

If you live in Florida, chances are the town you grew up in or live in now looks different than it did 10 years ago.

Expansion is a way of life here in the Sunshine State and as more people move in, the infrastructure is stressed to the limit.

Between the traffic, hot weather and rain — our roads take a beating.

Potholes form starting with cracks in the asphalt.

Then rain eventually seeps into the cracks which creates gaps.

That’s when the asphalt begins to break up as vehicles drive over it.

It gets weaker and weaker until it breaks apart, and just like that, a pothole forms.

Our Solutionaries team in Detroit sees this a lot and went looking for people working to create better systems and roads for citizens.

A new episode of Solutionaries is available every Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. on News 6 and on News 6+ for your smart TV (Roku, Fire TV, Apple TV, Google TV).