Local

I-4 west ramp from Maitland Blvd. to close over the weekend

MAITLAND, Fla. — A major ramp to I-4 west from Maitland Boulevard will close at 8 p.m. Friday and will remain closed until Monday morning.

A detour will take drivers 1 ½ miles out of the way and through two neighborhoods that already have more traffic than usual because of the I-4 Ultimate project.

“It's going to be chaotic at best. There's going to be people who don't understand what is going on, and they are going to get lost and probably drive through here,” said resident John Scott.

Workers need the detour so they can close the ramp and shift all the traffic onto the new I-4 west ramp from Maitland Boulevard east.

The detour will take thousands of people on Sandspur, Wymore and Hope roads, which already handle a lot of traffic.

Scott said the only silver lining is that the work is being done on the weekend and not during the weekday and having school out for the summer also helps.

“I hope they do something with the traffic signals, so that it doesn't back up completely and tie up everything,” Scott said.

The Maitland Boulevard interchange is one area that the contractor is trying to finish up quickly, because if it's finished ahead of schedule, they'll get an extra $2.7 million.

More than 74,000 drivers pass through the interchange every day.