Note to readers: In December Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced a widening project on one of the busiest stretches of Interstate 75 between south Fort Myers and Naples will start in 2026, one year earlier than originally planned.
A total of 18.5 miles of I-75 will be widened from Golden Gate Parkway in Collier County to Corkscrew Road in Lee County. One lane will be added in each direction with auxiliary lanes, increasing the roadway from 6 to 8 lanes.
The news is cause for concern for a group of gated community residents in Collier County, who submitted this guest opinion column to the Naples Daily News.
Environmental noise, particularly road traffic noise, is among the most damaging environmental factors to health after air pollution. There are many investigations that have been done that prove that such noise has been found to create health issues, disturbed sleep and higher blood pressure. Noise and noise annoyance have been associated with mental health issues such as depression and anxiety, and noise exposure has also been associated with a greater diabetes risk. Now, drop the above in North Naples, where many retired couples are living their golden years, hoping to get away from the cold weather of the North and to reap the benefits of their lives’ hard work on a golf course and you’ve created one heck of an injustice and inhumane situation. That is exactly what is going on at Quail West (QW) and Cypress Woods Country Club (CWCC) with the recently announced I-75 expansion during which the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) has proposed adding one additional lane going north and one additional lane going south.
This expansion will add insult to injury to the current noise coming from I-75 which has recently been expanded due to increased traffic. Naples’ population is increasing by leaps and bounds as northerners are relocating to Florida, which is then exacerbated by snowbirds between October and April of each year.
While these snowbirds are not residents of Florida, and therefore do not have a vote, they do come in by the thousands which means that they are adding to the traffic issue and therefore the noise levels. Additionally, many of them are Florida property owners and therefore pay taxes.
Noise pollution and the noise levels that form the urban soundscape is getting worse by the day, and is becoming a health menace even before the new expansion of I-75. FDOT, in their wisdom and perhaps cost cutting, didn’t anticipate the now significantly higher volumes of traffic and the noise emanating, and didn’t build a noise reduction wall when they did the last expansion.
As FDOT plans the new expansion, they will probably repeat the same mistake.
There are those who might not believe in mentioning the past, however, in the words of Winston Churchill, those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. FDOT will go through the motions of doing their noise testing analysis through their algorithm mechanism and again they will declare that the cost of the wall per house affected is too high and therefore a wall will not be built, leaving abutting neighbors to suffer.
It is also important to mention that there are other communities that have no noise walls throughout the length of the affected portion of I-75. They must have a wall built for them as well. There is another issue with the expansion of I-75 that must be raised − SAFETY.
The highway is so close to homes and well-used recreational areas, that when there are traffic incidents, it is not unusual to have cars careening into the abutting communities.
Emergency officials work the scene of a plane crash on I-75 in Naples near exit 105 on Saturday, Feb. 10, 2024. The plane carrying five people crashed on Friday, Feb. 9, 2023. Two people have been confirmed dead.
Significantly, in 2023 an airplane crashed a few miles away from our communities and the only thing that stopped the airplane from killing and injuring scores of people was the highway noise barrier wall.. While this is obviously not a frequent occurrence, the fact that it happened once proves that it can happen again.
And so we ask … is money more important than human lives and human health? We know the answer but does FDOT know or even care?
Mike Farrugia is a resident of Cypress Woods, Steve Gartner is a resident of Quail West and Jim Aylward is a resident of Quail West.
This article originally appeared on Naples Daily News: Would widening I-75 in Naples create more noise for residents?