Fort Myers Beach hopes to relieve some traffic woes by adding a new stoplight

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Fort Myers Beach traffic (WINK News)

Cars standing still, long wait times getting on the island: these are scenes all too familiar to Don Davis.

“We get down here a lot early or before season in November, usually, and you can drive anywhere in five minutes and now it takes an hour and five minutes,” he said.

He blames it on the traffic getting off the bridge.

“It’s always backed up during season,” Davis said. “There’s always people trying to turn left when they don’t need to be turning left.”

The Town of Fort Myers Beach hopes to relieve some of those traffic woes by putting in a stoplight at the corner of Old San Carlos and Estero Boulevards. It’s currently a three-way stop.

Fort Myers Beach hopes to put a new traffic light at Old San Carlos and Estero Blvds. (WINK News)

Monday, the council approved spending $75,000 for the design.

The extra traffic light will add to Lee County’s existing plan to add a light at the corner of Crescent and Estero.

Visitor Carey Paxton says he’s not as on board with the project.

“I think it will add more traffic coming across the bridge,” he said, and he worries about extra wait times.

“If you got a light that comes on and goes on for so many minutes and then goes off and then switches the other direction, it’s just going to add more time to the driving,” he said.

The Town of Fort Myers Beach says if the county’s plans move forward, they plan to sync the two lights together. They hope to have the money available by July and say it should take less than a year to transform the intersection.

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