Years of waiting and planning are now beginning to take shape at a troubled intersection east of DeLand.

The long-anticipated construction of a roundabout at the intersection of State Road 44 and Kepler Road is underway. For the next 15 months or so, workers will labor to change the flows of traffic from stop-and-go to steady flows in four directions, with a measure of safety included in the mix.

“There are no detours. All lanes of traffic will be open during all phases [of construction],” Florida Department of Transportation Construction Project Manager Michael “Glenn” Rainey told The Beacon.

The S.R. 44/Kepler Road roundabout is supposed to be finished in the fall of 2025.

The oft-congested intersection has long been a source of complaints from drivers who must pass through it to get from here to there. When the $8.5 million project is finished in the fall of 2025, the S.R. 44/Kepler Road intersection will be changed from a signal-controlled choke point to an intersection in which motorists must reduce their speed as they enter a circle to resume their direction of travel or to make a turn.

While the intersection will remain open during its reconstruction, there may be intermittent lane closures. Signs will advise drivers to use caution in the construction zone.

A public notice from the FDOT regarding the roundabout notes the following:

“At various points during the project, traffic will be shifted onto temporary pavement while the roundabout and other project features are being constructed. The existing traffic signal at the intersection will be replaced with a temporary traffic signal, which will be permanently removed once the roundabout is operational.”

The flyer further notes the “existing posted speed limit on S.R. 44 of 45 miles per hour shall remain throughout construction.”

The contractor for the project is P&S Paving Inc., of Daytona Beach.

The FDOT is the lead agency for the roundabout project, because S.R. 44 is a state thoroughfare.

Volusia County’s Traffic Engineering data show the intersection is a point of separation for many vehicles and a joining point for others. The county’s average daily traffic counts for 2021 — the most recent year for which the numbers are available — point out the following:

State Road 44, between Blue Lake Avenue and Kepler Road — 16,700 vehicles 

State Road 44, between Kepler Road and Summit Avenue — 19,00 vehicles 

Kepler Road, between the planned East Beresford Avenue Extension and S.R. 44 — 10,080 vehicles 

Kepler Road, between S.R. 44 and Minnesota Avenue — 15,640 vehicles

On a related note, the planned change of the S.R. 44/Kepler Road intersection is prompting refinements at the roundabout for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Beltway and Orange Camp Road, not far away.

“We’ve been working with FDOT to make some improvements of the other one, mainly with signage,” Volusia County Public Works Director Ben Bartlett told The Beacon. “There will be some road delineators to prevent people from changing lanes.”

The delineators may be such things as small ridges or rough places in the lane striping that drivers may “feel” if the wheels of their vehicles run over the lines.

Bartlett said the crashes at the Orange Camp/MLK roundabout have declined. The Beacon has requested the figures on the accidents within the traffic circle. Because drivers are getting the message to slow down as they approach the roundabout and to maintain a reduced speed until they leave it, Bartlett said the accidents that do occur are usually less severe than those at signal-controlled intersections, where T-bone crashes and even head-on collisions are more frequent. The more critical accidents — often with casualties and more costly property damage — at standard intersections are often the result of higher speeds than are common in roundabouts, he added.

“The FDOT is putting roundabouts all over the state,” Bartlett said.