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July 18, 2025 • 22 mins
Interim County Administrator Todd Bonlarron tells you everything you need to know about the August closure of Northlake Boulevard at the Beeline Highway.
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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, Joel Malcolm for WJ and O dot com, and
we are talking about an eight day closure of a
major intersection North Lake Boulevard at the B Line Highway.
This is for CSX railroad replacement. This is a project
that is pretty in depth. We're told the workers are
going to be working twenty four hours a day working
on the railroad, so to speak. Literally. We have Interim

(00:23):
Palm Beach County Administrator Todd bon Larin joining us to
kind of get to all the ins and outs of this,
and I appreciate your time on this, Todd. Thank you
for joining me.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
My pleasure. Joel.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
Happy to be here to do as much as I
can to inform impacted residents and commuters about some of
the upcoming work scheduled for the intersection of North Lake
and Bee Line Highway on the CSX tracks.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
Now, this is going to begin August first, and I
know that CSX is going to start the work eight
pm on Friday, August first, and that was always a
plan to be a Friday in the evening so that
the rush hour is over for that day, and then
they're going to work through the weekend and then the
following Monday through Friday, and then I guess it would

(01:07):
be the next weekend. But in theory, we're told that
only five actual work days are going to be affected.
Is there anything before we get into all the ins
and outs, are there any circumstances that you have been
told that could make it worse and it could take longer.
Is it even a possibility it could go beyond the
eight days?

Speaker 3 (01:27):
Well, DOT and CSX, I know, have been closely coordinating
on the work schedule for quite some time, and I
think a number of the things that could impact any
potential delays, they feel like they've been able to build
into their schedule and their calendar to accommodate that over
the time period that they provided. I think, you know, obviously,

(01:50):
you know here in South Florida and particularly this time
of the year, we're always prone to Mother Nature and
changes in weather or weather patterns that may come up, So,
you know, short of I think some stream weather systems,
it's minunderstanding that they should be able to complete the
work within the timeframe that they've allotted and.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
Have put out there for the public.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
At this point, So it sounds like what you're saying
is they've looked at saying we could probably get it
done in fewer than eight days, but let's give it
eight days just to be sure.

Speaker 3 (02:23):
Yeah, I mean, I think that they've kind of calculated
all of the different scenarios. But the reality is that
they've put out that they're going to be starting this
on Friday, August first, and that that will.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
Be continuing continuing through.

Speaker 3 (02:38):
Sunday, August the tenth, and really feel like the impacts
from the work week are going to be confined to
that one week of that Monday through Friday date beginning
on August the first on Friday.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
Have you been told of anything that could maybe go
better than expected and maybe the potential for them to
make it a shorter closure, maybe open up on that
Friday for example, or is that something they're not even discussing.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (03:05):
No, I don't think that that's been a topic of
conversation that they have been discussing. I mean, the reality
of it is that we want to prepare our residents
and commuters in that region for.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
What the realistic expectation is.

Speaker 3 (03:20):
Always if there are certain things that happen that make
for an accelerated schedule, then you know it falls where
it falls in the communication on that I think will
be wide and vast that we'll be able to discuss.
But for the sake of this particular project, they've got
a pretty good handle on the work that they need
to do, the timeframe that it's involved in, and so

(03:42):
that's why they put out those dates, and we wanted
to just make sure that once we landed on that date,
which we did of August first, that it was good
to go before we publicize that widely, and as soon
as they gave the thumbs up, we have been communicating
as best as we can with multiple partners through as
many venues as possible.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
Now it looks like they're actually replacing the track at
that intersection. Can you just get give a very brief
synopsis of what it is that's being done there during
those eight days?

Speaker 3 (04:13):
Yeah, I mean it's really just that, I mean CSX
is coming in to perform some railroad track replacements, so
they're actually replacing those tracks themselves and then some signalization
improvement along that intersection. And obviously when you do that,
it's you know, you're putting in different track, but then
you're also needing to test those tracks as well with

(04:38):
trains that will run along it.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
During that testing phase.

Speaker 3 (04:42):
So that's all part of what's included in that period
of time of that August first to August tenth timeframe
that for that replacement.

Speaker 1 (04:52):
Now, this is going to shut down North Lake at
the intersection. Does this also and I'm trying to in
my mind picture it, if you're on the bee Line,
you're also affected.

Speaker 3 (05:03):
Yeah, so this is right at the bee Line and
North Lake the intersection. The tracks themselves are right at
North Lake, so traffic should be able to move along
Bee Line in that region. But the issue that many
of the residents in the acreage in West Palm Beach

(05:26):
and Palm Beach Gardens that live west of that intersection
is that that intersection is going to be closed, and
so they're going to need to work around that. And
we've put a number of maps out that sort of
share and show exactly what those alternatives and those options
are along those routes. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:47):
Now, I know that it had been said the county
was putting out the word, you know, use the specific
detours we tell you about, don't use some of the
other streets.

Speaker 2 (05:58):
What is the reason for that?

Speaker 1 (06:00):
On what are some of those streets you know you're
saying don't don't use. We should just point out some
of the detours Seminole, Pratt, Whitney Roads, Southern Boulevard, Military Trail,
North Lake, some of the others Coconut Orange, Royal Pond.
But there's some other I guess some of the smaller
roads that you want to keep people off of.

Speaker 3 (06:19):
Yeah, I mean, and obviously some of those roads that
are in the acreage. I mean, you've got roads that
aren't paved in that area, and you know, are not
necessarily equipped for the type of traffic of diversion of
that amount of cars in that area. So what we
have been messaging in the detours that have been put

(06:39):
in place are primarily those main feeder roads that run
through the acreage and on the outside of it, So
Seminal Pratt, Whitney Road, Coconut Boulevard down to Royal Palm
Beach Boulevard, and then Coconut through a variation to sixtieth
Street and then ultimately to State Road seven. To provide
some of that relief along Okachobe Boulevard, we've even given

(07:02):
options and alternatives for those particularly out west to utilize
Southern Boulevard as well, because when you're flowing that much
traffic off of North Lake and then down to Okachobee,
the expectation is that you're going to see some additional
delays along okachobe Boulevard. So we're trying to do whatever

(07:23):
we can to mitigate and relieve that by diverting some
of that traffic to southern and just giving folks different
options and alternatives.

Speaker 2 (07:32):
During that week time.

Speaker 1 (07:35):
Our CBS twelve partners did a drive through, and I
think Channel five did one as well, and they went ahead,
they say without traffic, they did a detour and they
say that it was like almost an hour longer than
it would normally take. That just sounds kind of extreme
to me, but I mean it's I think it's it

(07:55):
was like a thirty mile detour something like that. Does
that sound right?

Speaker 3 (07:59):
I mean, Joel, there there's a lot of population that
lives in that region. It's probably one of the fastest
growing areas in Palm Beach County. You know, you've got
neighborhoods that are to the north of North Lake that
are in Palm Beach Gardens. You've got Ibis obviously, which
is right there by the intersection in West Palm Beach

(08:21):
and then you've got you know, development that has occurred
in the acreage, particularly with the city of West Lake
for example, and you know some of the growth that
we've seen there in Lochsahetchi Grove. So you have a
lot of residents that live in that area of the county,
and we have tremendous flow during you know, rush hour

(08:43):
Monday through Friday on North Lake Boulevard. So when you
are taking that traffic and you're moving it temporarily south,
in addition to all of the traffic that exists at
those roadways like Okachobee, there's the potential for some significant.

Speaker 1 (09:00):
What is your message to the folks? You mentioned the
folks that will be impacted, and I guess the number
we're given out is around seventy thousand or up to
seventy thousand drivers.

Speaker 2 (09:10):
What what what are what are you?

Speaker 1 (09:12):
What is your message to them?

Speaker 3 (09:14):
Well, I mean, first and foremost, I think the message is,
you know, be prepared and be patient.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
Right.

Speaker 3 (09:21):
Second is that you know, make sure that you map
out and you are aware of some of these detours
and some of the options that exist so that you
can utilize those. So be prepared. From that perspective, the
other the other pieces that you know, we've messaged with
a number of employers throughout the region, including us as

(09:42):
the county about providing some flexibility during that week to
the workforce if maybe somebody doesn't need to be in
the office that day, or if there's an opportunity to
flex commute times either on the earlier end or the
later end of the morning and then likewise in the afternoon,

(10:02):
to allow some of those employees a little bit of
flexibility coming in and out of work during that week.
We've also done some really unique things in the county too,
about if maybe you want to take advantage of the
opportunity and go somewhere else for a week within the
county and.

Speaker 2 (10:23):
Enjoy a staycation.

Speaker 3 (10:24):
So we've put out a number of different options and
have messaged that to the public just to do everything
we can for their preparation.

Speaker 1 (10:34):
And I know one of the other things you were
saying was, you know, work from home if you can.
Obviously it's not something that everybody can do, correct, But
as far as for county employees, which in your interim title,
I guess.

Speaker 2 (10:51):
You would be their.

Speaker 1 (10:53):
Manager at this point, do you have a number or
a percentage of how many employees that you have that
can work work from home and or adjust their hours.

Speaker 3 (11:03):
So the one thing that we do know is in
that impacted region, we probably have about one thousand or
so county employees in various departments that live in that
area that may be impacted by this. So what we've
done is we've put out a policy and a directive
to each of our department directors to review with their

(11:26):
departments and their employees and their departments their work during
that week and the ability for some of those individuals
to have a little bit of flexibility. Now, look, as
a county, so many of the positions that we have
are ones that require people to be at their workplace.
We've got firefighters, an emergency you know, personnel that live

(11:47):
in the region. We have bus operators and mechanics.

Speaker 2 (11:50):
That live there.

Speaker 3 (11:51):
We have people that work, you know as librarians and
our libraries out there. So we understand that a lot
of those positions do require people to be at their
place of work. But that's why we've opted to have
department directors work individually within their departments and try to
accommodate as best as they can employees that potentially will

(12:15):
be impacted by the traffic during this week.

Speaker 1 (12:18):
What is the if you know, what is the potential
economic impact to this eight day closure. I guess for
the purposes of people missing work, we're mostly looking at
a five day closure for that purpose. So we're talking
about one work week missed by maybe people that are
just able to take a week off.

Speaker 2 (12:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (12:37):
I mean, we've not necessarily done a specific economic impact
of what the closure might mean, but you know, to
your point of having run the routes and what some
of those delays might might take. I mean, obviously the
impact could be that it takes somebody a half hour
or an extra hour to commute, you know, to their

(12:59):
workplace and then back home afterwards. And that's why we're
trying to say, look to the extent where we can
do some remote work or flex time. Maybe people come
in later and stay later and so they avoid you know,
those peak hours of traffic altogether and are still able
to do the things that they need to do. But

(13:22):
I think with any traffic that you have related to construction,
delays obviously always means some level of economic impact to
employers and employees. But we're trying to do everything that
we can to mitigate that.

Speaker 2 (13:39):
As best as possible.

Speaker 1 (13:41):
Have you spoken with the school board regarding as you know,
obviously you're saying eight days, so it will be uh
school starts I think either the tenth or eleventh of August,
so you've just got a couple of days leeway there.
But you have the buses that do their practice routes
and all of that. Is this going to affect that
at all?

Speaker 3 (13:59):
Yeah, So we have had a number of discussions with
I would say an unprecedented partnership that's been involved in
this particular incident. It's not just the school district, and
we've had individual conversations with them so that they're very
aware and understand some of the implications of those dates,

(14:21):
but also with our municipalities, our neighborhood associations, with the
private sector, with EOT, with Career Source, and other entities
that work with employers and employees. So the idea obviously
in limiting this to this capacity and obviously trying to

(14:42):
get it done before our kids get back to school
is very important to all of us to make sure
that we minimize those impacts. But I do know that
the school board has been engaged with us and are
taking these closures into consideration as they're working through some
of their planning for the starter school.

Speaker 1 (15:03):
How are the emergency We're almost done here. I know
you've got a busy schedule emergency and first responder vehicles.
I understand there's been a plan B for them so
that they can get through this intersection somehow. How are
they doing that?

Speaker 3 (15:18):
So, what the CSX and DOOT have worked on is
an option for emergency response vehicles to have full access
to that intersection in the event of an emergency, so
there will be an opportunity for emergency vehicles to cross

(15:40):
over the intersection will be closed. That will be closed
at all times during the closure so as to not
impact services that are required of our fire rescue, law enforcement,
and other emergency response.

Speaker 2 (15:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:54):
I believe they're using a lane off of the B
line to get through.

Speaker 2 (16:00):
Yes, yes, kind of an exit rate.

Speaker 3 (16:02):
So in fact, our law enforcement and fire rescue personnel
have been preparing, and I know that they still have
a number of logistical meetings that they just continue to
follow up to fine tune the passage through that corridor.
But we feel very good about the level of coordination
between the entities so that the service will not be

(16:24):
interrupted during that construction time.

Speaker 1 (16:27):
Besides making yourself available, you know, for people like myself
and the TV stations and whatnot. And how else are
you notifying the public about the closure, because we did
hear from at least one person who spoke with our
news partners the other day that you know, wasn't wasn't
aware it was happening, which I found kind of crazy.
But you know, I'm in the news biz.

Speaker 3 (16:48):
Right, Yeah sure, And I'll tell you first and foremost
what I'll say is, and I've said this publicly to
our local media, including yourself, I think that you all
have done an incredible job from the onset in letting
the public know that this is coming and helping to
prepare for that. It certainly makes our jobs a lot

(17:10):
easier when our messaging is very coordinated with our local
media who have daily access to a broader public. So
that's first and foremost. But we have been coordinating with
the multiple entities that I mentioned earlier, so each of
us updating through different releases, and some of us have

(17:32):
different access to different groups and different constituencies, so that's
been helpful. We have fine tuned some of our web
pages to make sure that we have direct links with
project updates. I also know on the social media side,
we've been engaged with another number of social media sites,
particularly in the Acreage area, to make sure that we're

(17:55):
getting as best information out there as we possibly can.
Apps that we've got folks that have signed up out
of that region and not necessarily for this type of messaging,
but we'll be able to use that to send information
to them as well.

Speaker 2 (18:14):
We do have some of our public safety.

Speaker 3 (18:16):
Alert messaging that's part of our plan to message some
of our individuals in that area too. As we get
closer to that date, we're going to be doing digital
signs on our roads that we'll be able to alert
folks just you know, on the street level.

Speaker 2 (18:38):
And then you know, we've got.

Speaker 3 (18:40):
A lot of creative ways that we're able to get
messaging out through our Public Affairs department, through other departments
where people have signed up for alerts for a variety
of different different issues. And then we've also have some
mail outs and mail pieces that will be planning to
send out in addition to some of the impacted residents

(19:04):
in the area, so that they'll have some mail potentially
that will reach them in those areas. So I think
that in addition to just on the public side, whenever
we have public meetings and opportunities to address the public,
everybody has been taking.

Speaker 2 (19:20):
Advantage of those. We have.

Speaker 3 (19:23):
Indian Trail Improvement District has, I know, the gardens and
others have as well. So it's an all hands on
deck operation. And I think at this point, if you
don't know that this construction is coming, then I'm not
sure where you've been the last last few weeks because

(19:46):
it has got out there wide and vast, and I
think the expectation is that that communication is not going
to slow down over the coming weeks.

Speaker 1 (19:55):
Yeah, it's going to be frustrating for those who have
to deal with it, but for those who don't, they
can take a staycation before we un But I wanted
you to kind of just go into that a little
bit to you know, discover the Palm Beaches and the
work that the county's done with the tour as and
marketing arm in the county.

Speaker 3 (20:09):
Well, look, Joe, we've tried to get creative as best
as we can during this process, and one thing that
we worked with discovered the Palm Beaches was a campaign
to get out there on the marketing side and creating
some opportunities with a number of our hotels in the
county for staycations and to encourage people that might be

(20:30):
impacted to look on their website and residents can visit
the Palmbeaches dot com, backslash love, PBC, LVPBC and go
there to explore a number of you know, exclusive discounts
that they have been able to negotiate at some of
our local hotels and resorts.

Speaker 2 (20:53):
And the other good thing.

Speaker 3 (20:53):
About that too is that you know, when they negotiated those,
it's sometimes harder to negotiate it for just acific population
in a specific region, so they've opened it up to
a much broader audience as well. So if you're in
the county or even outside of the county, you know,
some of those in living in Florida, some of those
exclusive deals will be able to be.

Speaker 2 (21:14):
Taken advantage of.

Speaker 3 (21:15):
But you know, we just think that this is another
great opportunity for some of our residents to take what
is a difficult situation and experience part of the Palm
Beaches that they might otherwise not and instead of it
being a stressful situation for a week, if they have
a chance to relax a little bit, recharge somewhat, you know,

(21:36):
and really rediscover what makes our community a really special place.
It could help them out, and it will also help
ease some of.

Speaker 2 (21:43):
The congestion that we've got in our affected area.

Speaker 1 (21:46):
All right, again, this is coming up Friday, August first,
eight pm, so it shouldn't affect you know, your rush
hour drive on Friday, August first, but eight pm then
and go on for the next eight days. And I
appreciate you catching us up to date on this again,
the North Lake and the Beeline closure and August first

(22:09):
through August tenth, the Sunday Interim County Administrator Todd bon Laren,
thank you again.

Speaker 2 (22:14):
Thank you so much, Joel.

Speaker 3 (22:16):
We appreciate you, and we appreciate the partnership in getting
this message out there. This was really a valuable opportunity
and I couldn't be any more grateful to spend some time.

Speaker 2 (22:26):
With you today. Well.

Speaker 1 (22:27):
As much as I enjoy talking to you, I hope
we don't have to chat about hurricanes, so.

Speaker 2 (22:32):
Yeah, knock on wood, We're not going to do that,
all right, Thank you. Todd
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