Las Olas and A1A, the star entryway to Fort Lauderdale’s sunny sand zone, is one of South Florida’s most famous beachfront corners.
But at the moment, that famous corner is one big mess — and has been for months now, testing the patience of impatient drivers and prompting a litany of questions: What are they doing now?
How much is it costing? And, perhaps most important to those impatient commuters, when are they going to be done?
Here are the answers: It’s all part of a long-planned A1A streetscape project that’s costing taxpayers more than $10.9 million. The state, which owns A1A, is chipping in $1.5 million; Fort Lauderdale is footing the rest of the bill.
City officials say it will be gorgeous once it’s complete — and that will be soon.
The project, which got underway in April, was supposed to be wrapped up by the end of December. But weather delays pushed the expected completion date back to Jan. 31, city officials say.
When it’s finally done, city officials say it will be safer to walk along A1A.
The project involves replacing brick pavers on the sidewalk and spiffing up the intersection at A1A and Las Olas Boulevard with a signature hardscape pattern using colored, decorative concrete.
That’s not all.
Crews are also making these changes:
• Moving existing palms from the middle of the sidewalk to the curb to extend the walking area on both sides of A1A.
• Planting 32 coconut palms and nine date palms from Southeast Fifth Street by the Fort Lauderdale Beach parking lot all the way north to Poinsettia Street.
• Installing site furnishing elements, including accent seating and 109 bollards.
• Installing LED pedestrian lights along A1A to provide amber-colored lighting during turtle nesting season and white lighting the rest of the year.
‘Not a pretty sight’
The streetscape project has required lane closures along A1A, resulting in slowdowns and gridlock that has some avoiding the area if they can.
Paula Yukna, a retiree who lives in a condo near the beach, questions the timing of the project. Why mess with a high-profile stretch of road at the height of tourist season?
“I’m sure it’s going to be lovely when they’re done,” she told the South Florida Sun Sentinel. “But in the meantime, people who live on the barrier island go through hell. If you’re coming down Las Olas, you see the beautiful ocean. If you come down now, it’s not a pretty sight. You’re in the middle of a construction zone. You do not plan a major project during tourist season.”
Initially, Fort Lauderdale had planned for the work to begin in summer 2020, but the city needed the state to sign off on the project. That approval did not come until May 2022.
The project was put out to bid in July 2022, and the commission awarded the contract in December 2022.
Work began six months later.
Steve Glassman, the district commissioner, says weather has played a big part in stalling the project once it got underway.
“We had the November storm and the tornado on Jan. 6,” Glassman said. “There’s been several weather delays. But it’ll get done. The entire street has been vastly improved. The lighting alone is a big deal. We’ve added a lot more lighting and landscaping.”
Walking into trees?
Yukna walks along A1A every day and says she’s already noticed a change for the better.
“Years ago, they planted palm trees in the middle of the sidewalk,” she said. “I have seen people walking into palm trees. They get distracted looking toward the ocean or the traffic and they have actually walked into trees. I’ve also seen bicyclists slam into a tree.”
With the trees closer to the curb, fewer people should be running into them, Yukna hopes.
And when the project is done, traffic should flow better too, she says.
But for now, it’s a pain, she said.
Yukna recently had friends ask her to pick them up from the airport.
Heading back to the beach, they got stuck in a traffic jam. It took a full hour to travel from Southeast 17th Street to A1A and then up to Bayshore Drive.
“A1A goes from two lanes to one at the beach park,” she said. “And then the construction workers end up holding up traffic, backing a truck in. It was a nightmare.”
Joel Eriksson, a resident of the Harbor Beach neighborhood, says he and other commuters have been suffering the pain of gridlock on A1A long enough now.
“It takes 20 minutes to go half a mile,” he said. “I’m so frustrated. They closed down the road to one lane and it bottlenecks at Las Olas and A1A. It’s a catastrophe.”
While stuck in traffic, he’s shipped off emails to his district commissioner, Warren Sturman. But he is still waiting to hear back, he says.
Sturman could not be reached for comment despite three calls to his cellphone and two texts.
“People are on Facebook every day complaining about the traffic,” Eriksson said. “You wonder why people are revolting. They’re tired of it. No one in county or city government drives these roads daily, I can tell you that.”
Don’t blame it on the mayor
Not true, says Mayor Dean Trantalis.
“I travel these roads every single day all day long,” he told the Sun Sentinel. “Most people are understanding and patient with the amount of infrastructure improvements we’re doing throughout the city. But we all suffer the inconveniences of construction. We’re very much aware of it. And we do whatever we can to encourage contractors to move things along.”
Some frustrated residents, looking for someone to blame, say the mayor is responsible for getting traffic lights synchronized — even though the county is in charge of that.
Trantalis says he and mayors from other cities have asked the county again and again over the years to launch a better traffic light synchronization program.
“Every time we do that we never seem to make much headway,” the mayor said. “It would certainly help the pace of traffic on the roadways. That should be top of the list for the county. The city does its best to move traffic along, but the county handles the traffic lights.”
Commissioner John Herbst says the county has been working on traffic signal synchronization since he moved to town 17 years ago.
“If we could fix it, we would have done it by now,” he said. “It’s not like we’re unaware of the problem. If it was simple, we would have solved it. It’s just like the homeless problem. The fact of the matter is that no city in this country has figured out a way to solve homelessness.”
Herbst has also heard critics accuse the commission of being out of touch with the average Joe. But he has to drive on the same roads too and endure the same slow roll.
“I’m stuck on Federal Highway with everybody else,” Herbst said. “I spend more time stuck in traffic than I ever have.”
But when he’s not in a hurry, he takes A1A.
“The only reason I take A1A is to drive and look at the ocean,” he said. “I don’t take A1A to go fast. Speed is not the goal on A1A.”
Susannah Bryan can be reached at . Follow me on X @Susannah_Bryan
