JUPITER, Fla. — Many of you reached out to WPTV on Thursday about the congestion along Indiantown Road caused by a new traffic light near Interstate 95.
"I think we were getting a lot of the green lights that weren't synched up to the red lights," said Andrew Pignato, who tried driving through Indiantown Road to get to the gym.
He said a 2-mile commute took people nearly an hour.
"It was bumper to bumper, honks, a lot of people trying to make U-turns when they could but what sucks is they really coudn't go anywhere," said Pignato.
The traffic lights are part of a project taking place to expand Indiantown Road from three lanes to four.
"How are you preparing for tomorrow's traffic?" asked WPTV's Joel Lopez.
"I don't want to leave an hour early, but I feel like I have to," said Pignato.
The lights are intended to help with the flow of traffic along the portion of Indiantown Road that meets with I-95 and Florida's Turnpike.
"It was horrible, traffic is usually bad but today was twice as bad," said Amanda Johansson, who drove through Indiantown Road and was late taking her children to school.
"What did the administrators say when you were late with your kids?" asked WPTV's Joel Lopez.
"Everybody was late, everybody," said Johansson. "Usually, you have to walk them in and get a tardy note, today they were excused. They were like, 'Walk in, you're fine. We know the issue.'"
Town of Jupiter Councilman Cameron May said the lights should have not been activated until construction is complete and all lanes of traffic are open.
"I think it's going to be a little bit of a growing pain unfortunately. This is an FDOT project, this is not the Town of Jupiter," said May. "Hopefully they'll get the kinks worked out over the next few days."
May said the Town of Jupiter is communicating with Palm Beach County traffic and FDOT to try and work together collaboratively to try and find solutions.
"They will be on-site the next few days manually activating that light, to figure out the timing and what they need to do, how long the light needs to stay green and red in each direction," said May.
May said construction is expected to be completed by summer of 2025 and hopes traffic light timing will be resolved in the next couple of weeks.
Palm Beach County's Traffic Division also responded to WPTV with a statement saying in part:
"The current FDOT construction will add two more eastbound through lanes and a third northbound off-ramp right lane turn lane. Once these additional lanes are constructed, the traffic congestion will greatly improve. Both FDOT and County teams are monitoring and adjusting the signal timing as needed."
