Temporary Ficquette Road segment in place

HORIZON WEST — As Orange County crews expand Ficquette Road so it can one day be four lanes from one end to the other, planners and engineers need to explore many possible solutions to mitigate the disruption to traffic from construction.

Crews have been working on a section called Segment F recently, centered on the point in Bridgewater Village where Ficquette Road and Overstreet Road meet, said Douglas West, a member of the Orange County Traffic and Transportation team.

As opposed to a throughway running straight south from Winter Garden-Vineland Road to Overstreet Road, as it now does, widening of the road in that area will alter that connection.

In the meantime, a temporary piece of road just to the side of the junction of Ficquette Hancock, Overstreet and Fiquette roads will serve as the connection among those three roads, according to plans. 

“The new turn is further along Ficquette (Road) closer to Independence — watch for it across from the tall tower with the flag,” West said. “This new section of road is temporary and will end up being sod. The old road will be revamped to accommodate the new lanes — but only to where the bypass now ends. Further widening of Ficquette to four lanes is years down the road.”

A piece of Ficquette Road between Inglenook Drive and Overstreet Road will become a cul-de-sac to accommodate the cattle farm on the east side of the road there, West said.

“It’s quite a project, but so far, they are ahead of schedule,” he said.

According to the South-West Orange County Future Roadway Program, the design for that project was complete by November 2011, with right-of-way acquisition in October 2013 before construction began this January. The scheduled end of construction is July 2016.

Instead of the temporary configuration that joins Ficquette Road to Overstreet Road at a virtually right angle, the final configuration will feature a more natural bend for better flow from Ficquette Road to Ficquette Hancock Road, with Overstreet Road bending slightly east on its northward trajectory to meet them.

Segment G, which runs west of that junction for several hundred feet, requires a developer’s agreement for design, right-of-way and construction, according to plans.

Download a PDF rendering of the change here.

Contact Zak Kerr at [email protected].