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View from the Isles continued

A Long & Challenging Process
Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis led the official
groundbreaking ceremonies on Tuesday, June 14th, and
reviewed the long and challenging process that finally came
to fruition for the Las Olas Isles neighborhood.
“Almost two decades of planning has finally come to fruition
as we have launched the work to underground utility lines in
the Las Olas Isles. This has been a challenging effort but we
now are hardening the neighborhood’s infrastructure to better
protect it from the impact of hurricanes and other tropical
storms.
This project would not have been possible without the vision
and perseverance of the neighbors who are literally making it
happen by funding the work that’s taking place through a
special assessment.
To get this all started, a 70 percent majority of the
neighborhood had to express interested in the project. This
City Commission has supported the neighborhood desire to
transform your neighborhood and together with city staff, we
are seeing it through.
We are undergrounding FPL, Comcast, and AT&T lines in
this project. Though the isles will be even more picturesque,
undergrounding increases their system’s day-to-day reliability
by 50 percent and by 85 percent during storms. As we are in
the midst of what’s expected to be a busy hurricane season,
this benefit is even more top-of-mind.
We are using underground horizontal directional drilling and
limited excavations to reduce impacts to the neighborhood
when compared to open trench excavations. This is the
same innovative approach that was used in the successful
installation of the city’s new sewer force main, so the process
has been proven to deliver great results.

Overall, each isle is expected to take two to three weeks to
complete as crews make their way east toward Isle of
Palms Drive.
The months ahead will be challenging as you navigate
through lane closures and the inconvenience that is an active
construction project on dead-end streets with just one lane
in each direction. But know that our contractor and the city’s
team are working diligently to complete the work as soon
as possible to make way for the various utility companies to
complete their work as well.
In the end, this will be a tremendous upgrade to the Las Olas Isles
neighborhood. And then, we look forward to moving on to other
adjacent areas that also have been waiting for the work.”

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