ORLANDO, Fla. -- Farhan Shaikh is the manager of Melt'd restaurant, which lies just south of the busy intersection of South John Young Parkway and Sand Lake Road.

  • Traffic shift on John Young, Sand Lake creates issues
  • Shift making way for flyover to alleviate traffic
  • Project expected to continue into 2020

He's one of the 70,000 drivers who cross through there every day.

"We have to go through this intersection on a daily basis," Shaikh said, not only for his restaurant's catering service, but he's also transporting other precious cargo.

"My daughter goes downtown to school, so we always use John Young to go down to school," Shaikh said.

Business is good for Melt'd, but getting around that intersection can take some time, especially with so much construction.

"It was always a very busy intersection," Shaikh said.

Now, makeshift sidewalks and construction cones litter the intersection, and a new traffic shift occurred this week on John Young Parkway, shifting traffic to newly constructed lanes.

One option officials have for alleviating congestion on one road that intersects with another busy road is to fly over it, and that's exactly what's going to happen at John Young at Sand Lake. In the end, it'll look like the current intersection of U.S. 17-92 and State Road 436.

The project is part of a larger Sand Lake Road widening effort that will see the amount of lanes on Sand Lake increase from four to six. The entire project is expected to continue into 2020 and will cost about $75 million.

As for Shaikh, whether he's driving his daughter to school or catering an event, he said he'll be one of the first in line to try it out.

"That would be great," Shaikh said. "I would say that would save about eight to 10 minutes of traveling. So we would just get on the flyover and go over Sand Lake."

Traffic shift on John Young Parkway.
Traffic shift on John Young Parkway.