DAYTONA BEACH − Clyde Morris Boulevard − which snakes by three of the city’s most critical institutions in Halifax Health, Mainland High School and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University − has long been on the mind of a prominent local traffic engineer.
But over the course of 20 years, Maryam Ghyabi-White told The News-Journal, the project took a back seat to perhaps its most prominent crossings, International Speedway Boulevard. She then reimagined Clyde Morris from a simple widening, going from four to six lanes, to a different vision: a beautified, more pedestrian-friendly four-lane roadway with safety features that recognize the thousands of people who walk and ride along the corridor’s sidewalks.
Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Department of Transportation announced at Embry-Riddle Aug. 14 that the state has moved up construction by two years, and will start this fall on $56 million worth of resurfacing and other corridor improvements on a first segment between ISB and Richard Petty Boulevard.
“We’re excited to be sharing this project is being done and being started two years ahead of originally scheduled,” DeSantis said. “This is a great partnership with the county, with Embry-Riddle, with the city, who all came together to provide the remaining portions of land to get this project under way to completion.”
Work on the segment north of ISB and between Richard Petty Boulevard and Bellevue Avenue is scheduled to start in summer 2027, with a third segment to the south of Bellevue set to commence in summer 2028.
Jared Perdue, secretary of the Florida Department of Transportation, called the Clyde Morris improvements “a top priority for this region for years.”
DeSantis mentioned Ghyabi-White’s role in advancing the project.
“I know that this has been a long time coming. … I know this is something that she’s involved in designing this stuff, and this has been something that she’s been wanting to do for a long time, and obviously had a big part in of why it’s finally come to fruition.”
“I think this is going to be a great benefit to the community, to the university,” DeSantis said. “And you know, find these other states that are starting this stuff ahead of schedule. I mean, usually, it’s they promise we’re going to do this, and then five years later, ‘Oh, well, we’ll get around to it.’ No, I mean, we’re accelerating projects. We’ve accelerated projects all over the state for years.”
The reimagining will include a 14-foot-wide multi-use pathway on the west side of the boulevard and 8-foot sidewalks on the east side; raised medians with landscaping for safety; improved drainage; and upgraded traffic signals.
Embry-Riddle President Barry Butler joined DeSantis and Perdue during the news conference inside the university’s Center for Advanced Air Mobility, a hangar that’s part of its research park.
ERAU’s enrollment has jumped from about 5,000 when Butler arrived in 2017 to some 9,000, while the research park has been transformed from one empty building to “a real engine of aerospace activity,” he said.
The boulevard, named for a well-to-do pharmacist and city planning board chairman who died in 1965, is also known as State Road 430. The university’s main campus is directly north of the research park, and both abut Daytona Beach International Airport property.
Outside the research park buildings are bikes and skateboards, modes of transportation used by student researchers, Butler said.
“We have a lot of traffic between here and the main campus,” Butler said. “It’s really an active area. The roadway is so important in terms of safety for us, and so thank you very much to the state.”
At the main entrance of Embry-Riddle, a pedestrian underpass will be built, connecting the area in front of the Jim Henderson Administration and Welcome Center with the ICI Center, home to ERAU’s Eagles men’s basketball and women’s volleyball teams.
The underpass would be approximately 800 feet south of a pedestrian overpass. Ghyabi-White compared that facility − which was built in 1998, according to News-Journal reporting at the time − to Alaska’s “Bridge to Nowhere,” and said it is little-used.
“I have no idea whose idea that was,” she said.
Ghyabi-White considered moving that walkway closer to the main entryway, which sees far more foot traffic, but she said that would have been too costly.
Underpasses, if the water table is low enough, are less expensive than overpasses, she said. In this case, the area has been cleared for digging downward.
Gov. Ron DeSantis, FDOT announce major project for Daytona Beach – Daytona Beach News-Journal
