Southbound Three Oaks Parkway moves onto the new roadway on Monday morning, and a second change the county announced in the same notice closes Old Fiddlesticks Boulevard

Money & World

The Editorial Team · August 2, 2026

A row of eight white conical concrete bollards, each banded with two thin incised lines, set in a receding diagonal line along the join between grey asphalt and a rust red paved surface, in hard sunlight that throws each cone's shadow to the right. No people, vehicles, road markings, signage, buildings or legible text are in view, and no place can be identified from it. A generic illustration of lane separation on a road surface, not a photograph of Three Oaks Parkway, of Old Fiddlesticks Boulevard or of any Lee County road.

Photo: Jan van der Wolf / Pexels

What it changes

The useful part of this is not the lane shift. It is the closure the county put in the same notice and only one of the two Sunday stories carried. From Monday, weather permitting, Old Fiddlesticks Boulevard is shut between the roundabout and the southern access to the Publix shopping center at the Fiddlesticks Cafe, so crews can finish that segment. A driver who reads only that southbound traffic is moving onto new lanes will find a road gone that they use to reach a shopping plaza they visit weekly. The turning changes work the same way. Cody Lee Road and the new southern Publix entrance become right in and right out only, which means a southbound driver can no longer turn left across the road into either, and the way into that Publix entrance from the north is a left turn that stays permitted. Northbound Three Oaks Parkway traffic does not move at all and stays in the current outside lane. There is a second shift further north that has nothing to do with the Publix plaza: ahead of work on Palomino Lane, northbound traffic goes west into the bi-directional left turn lane north of Jobe Road and Kings Crossing. Phase 1 of the project stays closed, which it has been. None of this is an emergency and none of it is sudden. The county published the notice on July 24 and both WINK News and Gulf Coast News wrote it up on Sunday afternoon, which is why it is here on Sunday evening rather than after the fact on Monday. The timing is the whole value of the item. What is behind it is a project that changes the money geography of south Lee County rather than just the traffic. Three Oaks Parkway is being extended from Alico Road to Daniels Parkway, and Daniels Parkway is being widened to eight lanes from Danport Boulevard to Powers Court, giving the corridor a second north to south route parallel to US-41 and I-75. The county calls it a Tier 1 project for the Board of County Commissioners and says it is running ahead of a spring 2028 completion. For anyone who owns or rents along that corridor, a new through road and a widened arterial are the kind of change that shows up in land values and drive times for years after the cones are gone, and the two years of construction between now and then are the cost of it. One boundary worth keeping straight, because the two projects sit next to each other and are easy to merge into one complaint. The work at the I-75 and Daniels Parkway interchange is a Florida Department of Transportation project and is separate from this county work. The county says so in its own notice. A driver hitting delays at the interchange and delays on Three Oaks Parkway in the same trip is hitting two different agencies' schedules.

Southbound traffic on Three Oaks Parkway moves onto the new southbound roadway on Monday morning, and a stretch of Old Fiddlesticks Boulevard closes on the same day.

The Lee County Department of Transportation set the changes for Monday, August 3, weather permitting. Southbound Three Oaks Parkway traffic shifts into the inside lane of the new southbound lanes. Northbound traffic does not move and stays in the current outside lane.

The closure is the part a driver is most likely to be caught by. Old Fiddlesticks Boulevard shuts between the roundabout and the southern access to the Publix shopping center at the Fiddlesticks Cafe. The county says this is to let crews finish final construction on that segment of roadway.

Two turning movements change at the same time. At Cody Lee Road and at the new southern entrance to the Publix shopping center, traffic is limited to right in and right out. Drivers heading north on Three Oaks Parkway are still permitted to turn left into that new southern Publix entrance.

Further north, ahead of improvements to Palomino Lane, northbound traffic shifts west into the bi-directional left turn lane north of Jobe Road and Kings Crossing. Phase 1 of the project remains closed.

The county published this notice on July 24. WINK News reported it on Sunday afternoon, in a story by Haley Jacobs that carries the full set of changes, and Gulf Coast News reported it on Sunday in a story by Layza Pinero Resto that covers the southbound lane shift and refers readers to a county map without listing the road closure or the turning restrictions.

The work is part of the Three Oaks Parkway Extension Project, which extends Three Oaks Parkway from Alico Road to Daniels Parkway and widens Daniels Parkway to eight lanes from Danport Boulevard to Powers Court. Lee County's project site divides it into two segments, the first running north of Alico Road from the Fiddlesticks Canal to the vicinity of Indian Paint Lane, the second from there to the Daniels Parkway intersection at Fiddlesticks Boulevard and Palomino Lane.

The county describes the project as a Tier 1 priority for the Board of County Commissioners and says it is expected to finish in spring 2028, currently ahead of schedule.

The county notice adds one separation that matters to anyone driving the area. The Florida Department of Transportation work at the I-75 and Daniels Parkway interchange is a separate project from this county work.

Southbound Three Oaks Parkway moves onto the new roadway on Monday morning, and a second change the county announced in the same notice closes Old Fiddlesticks Boulevard

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The rip current statement covering Lee County's Gulf beaches has been extended a third time and now runs through Monday evening, a sixth day for the same event

A crash has two of the three southbound lanes of US-41 blocked at Broadway Avenue West in Estero, and the Florida Highway Patrol record also has a northbound lane shut