LAND O’ LAKES — Patience has finally paid off on Lake Patience Road.
The Florida Department of Transportation announced July 21 that work has begun on a $1.4 million traffic signal at the three-way intersection of U.S. 41/Land O’ Lakes Boulevard and Lake Patience Road, a project years in the making and long sought by residents.
Along with the signal, the work includes roadway resurfacing and sidewalk, pedestrian and lighting improvements, according to the project’s webpage, which lists the job as a safety project.
Once a two-lane side road, Lake Patience Road has become a major thoroughfare as homes, townhomes and apartments have gone up along the route, which cuts through to Sunlake Boulevard. Drivers use it daily to bypass the congested State Road 54 and U.S. 41 intersection, especially at rush hour.
The road also is the main route to Oakstead Elementary School, where pickup and drop-off lines back up twice a day during the school year.
Even before the project reached the design phase, FDOT restricted traffic exiting Lake Patience Road to right turns only, an attempt to curb the near-daily crashes and congestion at the intersection.
The new signal will sit less than half a mile from the nearest one, at Bell Lake Road, another heavily used cut-through in Land O’ Lakes.
It will be the third signal added to Land O’ Lakes Boulevard in recent years. A signal went up at Sunterra Drive in 2025 after Dayspring Academy on the Angeline campus opened at that corner. Before that, Pasco County built a back road connecting the Tierra Del Sol and Asbel Creek neighborhoods, prompting a signal at Asbel Road.
FDOT did not provide a timeline for completing or activating the signal.