![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Screenshot-62-6.png?resize=772%2C413&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nSome area residents have expressed concern about the project, saying it is being built in a busy part of the city and could cause them to spend a lot more time sitting in traffic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Florida weather drew Scott Salsbury to Lakeland in 2019, but as more people move to the area, it\u2019s also brought him traffic concerns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDefinitely need to give more street space,” he said. “Coming down here through South Florida during the afternoon, even now it\u2019s a nightmare.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The new hospital is scheduled to be built just a few minutes from his home, and Salsbury said he’s concerned about what that might mean for him and other residents.<\/p>\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Screenshot-62a-1.png?resize=758%2C458&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\u201cWhat are the plans that you\u2019re going to put in place, and are you going to be doing this overnight?” he said. “How is the road construction going to be and how open are you going to be with the residents?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lakeland Planning and Transportation Manager Chuck Barmby said that before the property was approved, several traffic studies were completed to assess the amount of traffic buildup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cA project of this scale will take several years to get to construction,” he said. “A nearby hospital that\u2019s under development now took about six years to get from zoning approval to when they\u2019re expected to open. So during that time, there will be a lot more work that we will be doing.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He also said most of the traffic takes place during the morning and evening hours when residents who live on the east and south side of the site are impacted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To address those concerns, Barmby said the city widened part of Harden Boulevard and focused on intersection improvements. He said the Wabash extension is also a critical part to help alleviate some of the traffic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Earlier this week the city of Lakeland approved the construction of a 400-bed hospital off Harden Boulevard. Some area residents have expressed concern about the project, saying it is being… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50051,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"12","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":50051,"url":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Screenshot-62-6.png","type":"image\/png"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[9817],"class_list":["post-50050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-some-residents-in-lakeland-concerned-about-traffic-from-new-hospital-project"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50050"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50050\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50053,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50050\/revisions\/50053"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}