OVIEDO, Fla. – Seminole County is gearing up for a major road upgrade in Oviedo, but drivers will need to be patient and prepare for long-term inconveniences before things get better.
“We’re taking it from a two-lane to a four-lane divided,” said Dino Lucarelli, Seminole County’s chief design engineer. “It’s improvement for the future, that’s for sure. It’s not just to accommodate the current traffic.”
The upgrade in question: Slavia Road, which connects Red Bug Lake Road to Aloma Avenue.
Slavia Road is a two-lane east/west thoroughfare that drivers familiar with the area can use to bypass part of Red Bug Lake Road. Seminole County estimates about 12,500 vehicles travel on the road each day and with population growth in the area continuing to soar, transportation officials think volume could nearly double over the next 20 years.
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“The growth of Central Florida has caught a lot of people by surprise,” Lucarelli told News 6.
To get ahead of the growth, Seminole County is planning to widen Slavia Road, not only adding more lanes for vehicles but also introducing a pedestrian and bike-friendly infrastructure.
The $10.1 million project (officially known as the Slavia Road Capacity Improvements Project) will include a new 15.5-foot center median allowing for left-hand turns, a 5-foot-wide sidewalk on the eastbound side, and a 10-foot-wide multi-use path on the westbound side.
At Lukas Road, where The Master’s Academy is located, a new traffic signal will also be installed to help improve traffic flow, especially during drop-off and pick-up times for parents and students. And those millions of dollars for construction – funding came from the county’s one-penny sales tax increase (no toll money or gas tax revenue was needed).
Not as easy as it seems
Although Slavia Road is only about a mile from beginning to end, expanding it is no simple task. The biggest challenge: the State Road 417 overpass which will require major work.
“It’s 60 feet wide right now,” Lucarelli explained. “We have to take it to 100.”
Lucarelli said that part of the expansion is a complicated three-phase process that involves construction, diversion and completion. Here’s how it breaks down:
Construction crews need to build a temporary center span over Slavia Road, route traffic off one of the north/south bridges, tear down that bridge, widen the supporting architecture, rebuild the bridge and then put traffic on the new roadway.
And then they have to do the same for the other side.
The most painful part for commuters is that construction is being done by Florida Turnpike Enterprise (part of the Florida Department of Transportation) and will take years to complete.
“The bad news that we got is they’re not going to complete it until 2029,” Lucarelli said.
According to a spokesperson from Seminole County Public Works Engineering, the county’s timeline for their part of the project is just 430 days.
When asked if drivers should expect major headaches during construction, Lucarelli admitted there would be some pain involved.
“A little bit,” he said. “They’ll do a lot of that work at night because you can’t have the traffic. There will be a detour to get people around — so a little inconvenience, but not too bad.”
All of this also comes at a time when the 417 will also be under construction, going from two lanes in each direction to four.
There was another plan, but…
Seminole County originally explored extending Slavia Road all the way to Alafaya Trail (State Road 434), but residents pushed back hard enough to shut the idea down.
“It was a good intention,” Lucarelli said of the extension. “We started it to alleviate the build-up of traffic on Mitchell Hammock and Chapman, but it was not received very well by the public, so we had to stop it.”
Lucarelli noted that expanding Mitchell Hammock or improving Chapman Road could still be future options for easing congestion, but for now, the Slavia Road expansion is the county’s best bet.
“We’ve got plans already to go,” Lucarelli said. “It’s a long process, but once it’s done, it’ll be good for decades to come.”
