ORLANDO, Fla. — Nearly three years into the project, I-4 Ultimate officials are still confident in their original completion time frame.

  • I-4 Ultimate officials say project is at halfway point
  • Spokesperson said project expected to wrap up in 2021
  • I-4 Ultimate is Florida's single largest infrastructure project 

"Overall with the project, we are still where we want to be,” said I-4 Ultimate spokesperson Dave Parks.  “We are at about the halfway point. We broke ground in February (2015), and we're still looking at the project wrapping up in 2021."

A majority of the work during the first three years focused on what's happening below the ground, relocating utilities and getting bridge foundation structures in the ground. That means moving forward, you will probably notice the road starting to look different more rapidly.

"You're now starting to see a lot of work above ground with new elevation changes,” Parks said. “So maybe it even looks like the project is kicking into high gear, if you will, because you can see so many things changing so quickly."

With change coming that means lots of frequent overnight closures for 2019 as crews continue to open up work zones and shift traffic onto work that's already been completed.

I-4 Ultimate Scope

The scope of the project is staggering.

The I-4 Ultimate Project is Florida's single largest infrastructure project that the state has undertaken at any one time including:

  • 21 miles of complete reconstruction of a vital corridor.
  • 140 bridges will be built during the project as well.

In addition, one of the new features that will be introduced to I-4 will be the inclusion of express lanes — two dynamic toll lanes in each direction that will vary in price depending upon how many vehicles are using those lanes with a goal of maintaining a 50 mph speed. Those lanes will not open up until the project is completed.

"That's primarily because as we are evolving and shifting and moving traffic, there are going to be times where we are putting traffic into the middle where those express lanes go by moving all the traffic all the way to the outside, where there is room to get in there and build those express lanes," Parks said.

I-4 Beyond the Ultimate

So what's after I-4 Ultimate?  More I-4 expansion.

The continued reconstruction of the I-4 corridor is known as ‘I-4 Beyond the Ultimate,’ which will rebuild I-4 twenty miles to the north and twenty miles to the south of the I-4 Ultimate Project.

"(The Department of Transportation) is starting to finalize some initial plans and looking at get some shoves in the ground as soon as 2020, starting to make some improvements beyond our 21-mile project," Parks said.

Three more years of construction sounds like a long time, but originally FDOT was going to break up the project into six or seven smaller jobs. That would mean a 20 to 25-year project, as opposed to one big one that will take six and a half years.