Clay County Road Changes in 2026: New Routes and Blanding Relief

"It's really, really bad," Clay County resident Zoriana Laney told News4JAX in late September about traffic at Blanding Boulevard and Wells Road. "Every day it's like that. It's ridiculous."

Most people who drive Blanding regularly would agree with her. Over the past two years the road carried its own traffic plus a lot of traffic that had nowhere else to go. Between late June and late September 2026, three separate projects started sending that overflow elsewhere. Two of them are finished. The third is the rebuild of Blanding itself, and it is close.

The Detour Is Over on County Road 220

The biggest change for Middleburg came on Friday, Sept. 25, 2026. At 10:45 that morning, traffic began crossing the new four-lane County Road 220 bridge over Little Black Creek. It replaces a bridge built in 1947, and the project finished two weeks ahead of schedule with no workplace accidents.

The work started in December 2024 with intersection improvements at Rideout Ferry Road. Bridge construction began in January 2025. For the past 22 months, Blanding Boulevard has been used as the detour. Reopening the bridge restores the direct link between Knight Boxx and Henley roads, and Clay Today expects it to take some of the heavy traffic off Blanding.

Farther east on CR 220, where the road crosses Swimming Pen Creek on Fleming Island, two long-running restaurants have just finished major remodels, according to a Clay Today story published Sept. 24, the day before the bridge opened.

• Whitey's Fish Camp has new owners. The Ham family ran the waterfront restaurant for 63 years and sold it to Harry's of America, a restaurant group led by Jesse Jabot and partner Justin Griffin that also owns Harry's Seafood, Bar and Grille and Casa Reina Taqueria and Tequila in St. Augustine. The dining room is brighter, the old pool room now seats large parties, and there's a new outdoor play area for kids with artificial grass. The menu adds Cajun dishes such as jambalaya, seafood queso and Low Country Pasta, and most meals can be ordered fried, grilled or blackened. The Tiki bar and outdoor seating are still there, and so is the stuffed fish.
• Encore Fleming Island, across the street, used to be Mercury Moon Bar and Grille. It closed for a month for a new roof, interior upgrades and parking lot work. The new menu focuses on elevated bar food: a stacked smashed burger called The Encore, Monte Cristo sandwiches, and panko-crusted broccoli bites with datil sauce. The drive-up package store window is still open.

The Expressway Now Covers the Whole County

The second project took some of the load off the other end of the county. At noon on Monday, June 29, 2026, FDOT opened the last Clay County segment of the First Coast Expressway, from US 17 to Leonard C. Taylor Parkway. The stretch from Blanding Boulevard to US 17 had opened on Aug. 9, 2025. With both open, the toll road now runs from I-10 to the base of the Shands Bridge, finishing the Clay County work that began in late 2019.

FDOT expects Green Cove Springs drivers to see the biggest difference. US 17 runs through the middle of town and backs up at rush hour. FDOT spokesperson Jacob Pickering described the expressway as a new way home for people "who live in Green Cove, who maybe work in Orange Park or Jacksonville." The coverage of the opening doesn't include any measured travel times, so treat the expressway as a second route with a toll rather than a guaranteed shortcut.

The cost of that second route depends on which toll points you pass and how you pay. FDOT's current rate sheet, dated June 2026, lists these prices for two-axle vehicles:

Toll-by-plate costs 27 cents more than SunPass at every toll point. That adds up fast if you make the trip every workday. Drivers without a transponder can still use the road, because the all-electronic system reads license plates.

The Triangle at the Shands Bridge

The June opening also changed the area around the Shands Bridge. New signals on Leonard C. Taylor Parkway let drivers coming west off the bridge turn north directly onto the expressway. The intersection of State Road 13 and State Road 16 now works as a counterclockwise triangle:

1. Two legs of the triangle are one-way only.
2. State Road 13 still carries traffic in both directions.
3. Two new traffic signals on SR 13 control the movements.

FDOT says the triangle will stay in place until the new Shands Bridge is finished. FDOT's project page describes the replacement as a $595 million, four-lane bridge just south of the current one. It will have 65 feet of clearance for boats, up from 45 feet today, and is expected to be finished in 2030. In other words, the triangle will be part of daily driving for several more years.

East of the river, the expressway's last links to I-95 in St. Johns County are still under construction. Jacksonville Today reported in June that the remaining segments are due in 2030. Earlier, in January 2026, the Jax Daily Record gave 2031 as the estimated finish for one 2.7-mile roadway contract east of the bridge. Those dates refer to different contracts, and either way, Clay County drivers headed to I-95 will be on surface roads after crossing the river for years to come.

Blanding and Wells, Where the Last Piece Is Being Built

The CR 220 bridge and the expressway draw traffic away from Blanding. FDOT's third project rebuilds Blanding itself at Wells Road, the Orange Park intersection Laney described. The $8 million project covers Blanding Boulevard, State Road 21, from south of Wells Road to the Ortega River intersection.

The new layout is already partly open. A signalized U-turn on northbound Blanding opened Tuesday, Sept. 22, and a Wells Road traffic shift followed on Sept. 26. Here's how it works for drivers heading west on Wells Road:

• Turning north onto Blanding: Westbound traffic now splits by turn direction before the intersection.
• Going west or turning south onto Blanding: Use the displaced left-turn lanes, then the new northbound U-turn.
• Leaving one of the three driveways past the displaced left: You'll need to make a U-turn to continue west on Wells or head south on Blanding.
• Eastbound on Wells: Traffic is already in its final configuration.

Through traffic on Wells Road will still cross Blanding in both directions once the work is done. "We're all very hopeful about the traffic because it's crazy," said Jon Cantrell, president of the Clay County Chamber of Commerce.

The work isn't done yet. FDOT's Oct. 2 lane-closure report lists nighttime work at Blanding and Wells for Oct. 3 through 9. The contractor, J.B. Coxwell Contracting, expects to finish "this fall," weather and unforeseen circumstances permitting. The county's July 14 update put the project at 57.46% complete, behind schedule because of weather, with a contract completion date of Nov. 16, 2026.

What Is Still Open-Ended This Month

A few smaller county projects were close to done at the start of October but hadn't been confirmed finished:

• Russell Road at CR 209: As of Clay County's Sept. 23 update, crews were on punch-list work, with completion forecast for the first week of October.
• CR 218 widening, Masters Road to Pine Tree Lane: Expected to finish in early fall once final asphalt, signs and pavement markings are in.
• Fox Meadow Phase 1 resurfacing: As of Sept. 30, single-lane closures and traffic shifts were still happening, with completion expected that week.
• Keystone Heights paving: Hilltop Street is done. Lakeview Street is expected to be finished by the end of October.

Once Blanding and Wells is finished, the CR 220 bridge, the full expressway and the rebuilt intersection will all be open at once for the first time. That gives Blanding Boulevard its first real chance to carry mostly its own traffic since the CR 220 detour began in late 2024.

New routes can change how long it takes to get to work, school or the river, and that can affect where a home makes sense. RCRE Group follows these Clay County road projects closely and can help you see what they mean for a property you own or one you're thinking about. If you're weighing a quick sale, start by requesting your cash offer.