Office of Operations
photos of traffic merging onto congested highway, congestion in snowstorm, variable message sign, cargo, variable speed limit sign in a work zone, and a freeway at night
21st Century Operations Using 21st Century Technologies

Traffic Bottlenecks

Traffic Bottlenecks > Combating Bottlenecks

Combating Bottlenecks

Florida

Try it! You'll like it! A trial traffic pattern worked so well that it became a permanent fix.

Bottleneck Project: I-95 to I-595. The long-standing traffic pattern was for two lanes of I-95 to merge into one lane before merging with the three through lanes on I-595. However, this choke down caused some legendary backups. State engineers observed that the traffic balance favored I-95, and therefore it might be better to narrow I-595, as opposed to I-95; i.e., go from a 3+1 merge to a 2+2 merge. Using only barrels and temporary striping, a temporary work zone-like lane drop was effected to try this scheme. This trial worked so well that FDOT implemented a full restriping through here. Now, two lanes of traffic from I-95 flow freely to merge with 2 lanes on the I-595 mainline. No added pavement, no added right of way, and a minimum of investment yielded a significant improvement.

Before

Florida state engineers used traffic barrels where I-95 joins I-595 to test if a new merge pattern could work.

Before: Florida state engineers used traffic barrels where I-95 joins I-595 to test if a new merge pattern could work.

After

The trial proved successful, so the state restriped the merge and made it permanent.

After: The trial proved successful, so the state restriped the merge and made it permanent.