ST. PETERBURG, Fla. — If you’ve driven on 4th Street lately, you’ve likely been through all of the construction.

The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) is changing the medians between 30th Avenue North to 94th Avenue North to help with safety and traffic flow.

But some drivers have questions about those changes.

Shannon Negro has driven on 4th Street for years, always making the same turn to get to and from her home.

Until one day, that turn was gone.

“We used to be able to come out to 4th Street and take a left,” Negro said. “Now it appears it’s all filled in with concrete.”

Up and down 4th Street, there are new concrete medians being installed.

Some of the new medians are now blocking turns that were previously available. Other medians don’t appear to be finished yet, which Negro says doesn’t leave enough room to turn left since they have incomplete gaps between the lanes and barriers.

“It’s frustrating when you have to slow down so much to get into the position you want,” Negro said. “To get in between these concrete barriers. And I’ve had people beep that I’m going too slow to get into the left turn lane.”

FDOT officials say the major purpose of the project is to improve safety. They say from 2014 to 2018, there were 1,501 crashes with nine deaths on 4th Street from 30th Avenue North to 94th Avenue North.

Reducing the number of median openings can reduce the number of crashes.

FDOT also says the current conditions of the medians will be improved with paving. When done, the gaps will be smoothed out.

While FDOT did announce the project ahead of time, Negro says many of her neighbors weren’t aware of the changes. But she hopes once the work is done, it will make it easier to navigate 4th Street.

“I’m hoping they can at least get the repairs done for what they dug up,” Negro said. “That’s the biggest thing. And then I think it’s going to be a lot easier to make your left turns.”

The road work is expected to be done in the summer of 2024.