The first diverging diamond has arrived in Osceola County.
It has nothing to do with jewelry.
If you are one of the 68,000 people who pass through the interchange at Interstate 4 and County Road 532 (Osceola-Polk Line Road) at the entrance to ChampionsGate daily, you’ll appreciate a new design to that intersection that, the Florida Department of Transportation hopes, will improve the location of nearly daily congestion.
The interchange has been re-developed as a “diverging diamond interchange,” the first one in the county. It means that traffic that has to turn left to enter I-4 does not have to travel through a traffic light, or cross oncoming traffic.
To do that, traffic on each direction of 532 crosses each other while going underneath I-4, briefly traveling opposite the usual direction – driving on the left side of the road. Traffic turning left, either to enter or get off of I-4, won’t have to wait at a light. And traffic turning right will enter either I-4 or 532 outside the diverging diamond, meaning they’ll just have to merge.
It hasn’t been exactly a seamless transition — it opened Sunday afternoon, and on Monday, FDOT cameras showed about a dozen cars attempting to stay to the right and travel in the wrong direction under I-4. FDOT says it will add extra signage, and that FHP troopers will monitor the intersection while drivers learn the new pattern. They should just follow the lane markings over to the left side.
The only signals in the intersection will be for traffic going straight on 532, on either side of the interchange, where travel lanes will cross each other. But since the signals won’t include traffic turning left, the green lights will be able to be longer. FDOT representatives say that since traffic will spend less time sitting at a red light, double the number of cars can pass through it in the same amount of time.
Lanes haven’t just been moved; the whole interchange has been expanded. The westbound I-4 exit ramp expands to four lanes – two right and left turn lanes onto 532. The eastbound I-4 entrance ramp is now three lanes, as is the eastbound I-4 exit ramp, with two lanes turning left and one right onto 532. The westbound I-4 entrance ramp now has two lanes to accommodate right and left turns from 532.
Of late, traffic using the traditional diamond interchange, made it obsolete by the sheer amount of traffic since ChampionsGate opened about 20 years ago. It now has clogged turn lanes onto I-4, gumming up the works in the whole interchange. It also clogs the interstate onramps, and that traffic is forced to merge into existing I-4 lanes. That would daily cause I-4 backups before and after 532, which sits between interchanges for U.S. Highway 27, a major artery through Polk County, and State Road 429, a toll road that’s a gateway to major growth areas of eastern Orange County. A continuing part of the FDOT project is the addition of another I-4 lane between 532 and 429.
The new interchange is part of the “I-4 Beyond the Ultimate” road project. Planning began in August 2021, with construction starting soon after. Work on new sidewalks and bike lanes through the interchange is ongoing, nad part of the project includes reconfiguring the intersection of ChampionsGate Boulevard and Goodman Road for better traffic flow.
