The Royal Park Bridge is a bascule bridge across the Intracoastal Waterway, linking Palm Beach and West Palm Beach, Florida. It gained widespread attention in February of 2022 when a woman fell to her death as its movable spans rose.
The Royal Park Bridge is a bascule bridge across the Intracoastal Waterway, linking Palm Beach and West Palm Beach, Florida. It gained widespread attention in February of 2022 when a woman fell to her death as its movable spans rose.
Elisha Newton "Cap" Dimick, a former state senator and first mayor of Palm Beach, built the original Royal Park Bridge as a wooden structure in 1911. He named the bridge after a housing project he was developing in Palm Beach called the Royal Park Addition. The toll was 25 cents per vehicle and 5 cents per pedestrian. In 1919, Palm Beach County purchased the bridge for $40,000. Two years later, the county intended to replace the bridge with a concrete span. However, two days prior to its scheduled opening, the bridge collapsed. [1] A two-lane concrete replacement of the original bridge finally opened on August 11, 1924. This incarnation of the Royal Park Bridge suffered severe damage during the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane, [2] including to its west approach, draw span, wiring, and protective fenders, some of which were completely removed. However, temporary repairs, including the addition of wood and dirt fill-in, allowed vehicular and boat traffic to resume less than two weeks after the storm. [3]
The entirety of the original 1911 bridge was replaced in 1959. [4] During that time, the county added two lanes along the south side of the bridge and installed two drawbridges, at a cost of around $1.5 million. This bridge remained in use for about 40 years, until the discovery of wood borers led to its condemnation in 1998. In December of the following year, a temporary bridge opened, constructed at a cost of $13 million. [2]
The current Royal Park Bridge is a bascule bridge. It opened in 2005. [4]
On February 6, 2022, Carol Esterling Wright was killed while crossing the bridge with her bike when its spans suddenly started rising. [5] The bridge tender on duty, Artissua Paulk, was fired, arrested, and subsequently charged with manslaughter by culpable negligence. [6] [7] Additionally, the victim's family filed a lawsuit against the bridge tender and Florida Drawbridges Inc. (FDI), resulting in a $8.2 million settlement in July 2022. FDI also agreed to conduct background checks and retrain all of its bridge tenders. [8]
Lee County is located in Southwest Florida on the Gulf Coast. As of the 2020 census, the population was 760,822. The county seat is Fort Myers, and the largest city is Cape Coral with an estimated 2020 population of 194,016. The county comprises the Cape Coral–Fort Myers, FL Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Palm Beach is an incorporated town in Palm Beach County, Florida. Located on a barrier island in east-central Palm Beach County, the town is separated from several nearby cities including West Palm Beach and Lake Worth Beach by the Intracoastal Waterway to its west, though Palm Beach borders a small section of the latter and South Palm Beach at its southern boundaries. As of the 2020 census, Palm Beach had a year-round population of 9,245, an increase from 8,348 people in the 2010 census. Further, around 25,000 people reside in the town between November and April.
The Venetian Causeway crosses Biscayne Bay between Miami on the mainland and Miami Beach on a barrier island in the Miami metropolitan area. The man-made Venetian Islands and non-bridge portions of the causeway were created by materials which came from the dredging of the bay. The Venetian Causeway follows the original route of the Collins Bridge, a wooden 2.5 mi (4 km) long structure built in 1913 by John S. Collins and Carl G. Fisher which opened up the barrier island for unprecedented growth and development.
The Broadway Bridge is a segmental bridge that spans the Halifax River and Intracoastal Waterway in downtown Daytona Beach, Florida, carrying U.S. Route 92.
The Sanibel Causeway is a causeway in Southwest Florida that spans San Carlos Bay, connecting Sanibel Island with the Florida mainland in Punta Rassa. The causeway consists of three separate two-lane bridge spans, and two-man-made causeway islands between them. The entire causeway facility is owned by Lee County and operated by the Lee County Department of Transportation. The entire causeway is three miles long from end to end, and currently has a $6 toll in effect for island-bound vehicles only. The bridges are not individually named, and are simply referred to as bridges A, B, and C. The islands are also named A and B. Both series begin from the mainland side.
State Road 80 is a 123.5 miles (198.8 km) route linking US 41 Business in Fort Myers and State Road A1A in Palm Beach. The road is the northernmost of three linking Southwest Florida to South Florida via the Everglades. Due to increasing traffic, State Road 80 has experienced upgrades and widening in various sections since 2000.
The Pinellas Bayway System is a series of bridges on two state roads in Pinellas County, Florida. It is a toll road complex maintained and operated by the Florida Department of Transportation. It also is compatible with the SunPass ETC system currently in use on all other FDOT-owned toll roads. The Pinellas Bayway consists of:
Treasure Island Causeway is a series of three bridges crossing Boca Ciega Bay between Treasure Island and St. Petersburg in Pinellas County, Florida. The bridge, which carries County Road 150 (CR 150), is owned and maintained by the City of Treasure Island, which used to charge all motorists $1.00 toll, until June, 2006, when the first span of the bridge was reopened with no toll booth. Residents of two St. Petersburg waterfront communities used to pay a $10 annual road tax to the City of Treasure Island to help support road and median maintenance. That tax was eliminated in the spring of 2007. Treasure Island's ownership of the causeway in St. Petersburg was part of a land agreement entered into when these two cities were born: St. Petersburg's founding fathers purchased the Municipal Beach on the shores of the neighboring Gulf of Mexico community, Treasure Island, outside its own city limits to ensure that residents would have direct access to the Gulf of Mexico for generations to come. The western terminus is an intersection with Gulf of Mexico Boulevard in Treasure Island.
The Halifax River is part of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, located in northeast Volusia County, Florida. The waterway was originally known as the North Mosquito River, but was renamed after George Montagu-Dunk, 2nd Earl of Halifax, during the British occupation of Florida (1763–1784).
The Royal Poinciana Hotel was a Gilded Age hotel in Palm Beach, Florida, United States. Developed by Standard Oil founder Henry Flagler and approximately 1,000 workers, the hotel opened on February 11, 1894. As Flagler's first structure in South Florida, the Royal Poinciana Hotel played a significant role in the region's history, transforming the previously desolate area into a winter tourist destination and accelerating the development of Palm Beach and West Palm Beach. Two months later, Flagler's Florida East Coast Railway reached West Palm Beach, while a railroad bridge built across the Lake Worth Lagoon in 1895 allowed guests direct access to the hotel. In 1896, Flagler opened a second hotel nearby, The Breakers. The success of both hotels led to expansions of the Royal Poinciana Hotel in 1899 and 1901. By then, the building had reportedly become both the largest hotel and largest wooden structure in the world at the time.
State Road 789 is a 17.5-mile-long road along the Florida’s Gulf Coast that spans Bird Key, St. Armands Key, and Lido Key, in Sarasota; Longboat Key ; and Anna Maria Island. The southern terminus is the intersection of the John Ringling Causeway and the Tamiami Trail in Sarasota; the northern terminus is the intersection of Gulf Drive, North and Manatee Avenue., West in Holmes Beach. Much of the northernmost five miles (8 km) has been designated Bradenton Beach Scenic Highway.
The Clearwater Memorial Causeway byway is a six-lane road between downtown Clearwater and Clearwater Beach, Florida, and includes a bi-fixed-span bridge across the Intracoastal Waterway. Constructed out of Concrete coated in bio-degradable Ceramic Polyethylene. It carries the State Road 60 designation and is known for its greenways and pedestrian walkways and elegant bridge appearance and structure. The road is also a major evacuation route during hurricane season.
The Lafayette Avenue Bridge, formerly listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Bay City Bascule Bridge, is the name given to two separate bridges located in Bay City, Michigan. The bridges carry M-13 and M-84 over the Saginaw River. They are maintained by the Michigan Department of Transportation, and the bascule portion is currently the oldest of Bay City's four modern drawbridges. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on November 30, 1999, but was removed from the Register in 2015.
The Merrill P. Barber Bridge is a concrete arch bridge that spans the Indian River Intracoastal Waterway in Indian River County, Florida. The bridge was built by Odebrecht Contractors of Florida, Inc. and was completed in 1995. A fishing pier is constructed below the bridge on the east side.
The Highlands-Sea Bright Bridge is a bridge connecting Highlands, New Jersey in the west to Sea Bright, New Jersey in the east, across the Shrewsbury River. The eastern terminus is at the entrance to Sandy Hook. The span is part of Route 36.
The Port Orange Causeway, commonly called the Port Orange Bridge or the Dunlawton Bridge, spans the Halifax River and Intracoastal Waterway in Port Orange, Volusia County, Florida. The bridge carries approximately 29,000 vehicles per day across four lanes of State Road A1A and Dunlawton Avenue.
The Granada Bridge is a high-clearance bridge that spans the Halifax River and Intracoastal Waterway, linking the mainland and beach peninsula parts of Ormond Beach, Volusia County, Florida. Granada Bridge carries four lanes of State Road 40 and Granada Blvd. The Casements, along with City Hall Plaza, Fortunato Park, and Riverbridge Park reside at the four corners of Ormond Beach's Granada Bridge, which give their collective name to the annual "Four Corners Festival" in Ormond Beach.
The Smith Point Bridge is a steel bascule drawbridge in Shirley, New York that connects Long Island to Fire Island. Located on the south shore of central Suffolk County, the bridge carries William Floyd Parkway across The Narrows between Bellport Bay and Moriches Bay. It connects Long Island with Smith Point County Park and the Otis Pike Fire Island High Dune Wilderness, both are a part of the Fire Island National Seashore.
The Old Roosevelt Bridge is a bascule bridge that carries the old Dixie Highway across the St. Lucie River in Stuart, Florida. It used to have twin parallel bascule drawbridges - one for northbound traffic, and the other southbound - before the new Roosevelt Bridge was built. When the new bridge was completed in 1996 the northbound span of the bridge was torn down, leaving the southbound span which now carries traffic in both directions. This bridge was enacted by Roosevelt's New Deal.
The effects of the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane in Florida included at least 2,500 fatalities in the state, making this the second deadliest tropical cyclone on record in the contiguous United States, behind only the 1900 Galveston hurricane. The storm originated from a tropical depression that developed near Dakar, Senegal, on September 6. Traversing the Atlantic Ocean, the cyclone struck the Lesser Antilles, Puerto Rico, and the Bahamas as a powerful hurricane. Early on September 17, the storm made landfall near Palm Beach, Florida, as a Category 4 hurricane on the modern-day Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale. After initially moving northwestward across Florida, the cyclone curved north-northeastward near the Tampa Bay area. The hurricane briefly re-emerged into the Atlantic prior to striking South Carolina on September 18 and becoming extratropical over North Carolina on the next day, before the remnants lost their identity over Ontario on September 21.
Coordinates: 26°42′21″N80°02′47″W / 26.70597°N 80.04644°W
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