Seven Mile Bridge | |
---|---|
Coordinates | 24°41′54″N81°10′36″W / 24.6982°N 81.1767°W |
Carries | 2 lanes of US 1 |
Crosses | Moser Channel |
Locale | Florida Keys, Monroe County, Florida |
Maintained by | Florida Department of Transportation |
ID number | 900101 |
Characteristics | |
Design | Precast segmented box girder bridge |
Total length | 35,719.2 feet 6.765 miles (10.887 km) |
Width | 38 feet (12 m) |
Longest span | 135 feet (41 m) |
Clearance below | 65 feet (20 m) |
History | |
Construction cost | $45 million [1] (equivalent to $120 million in 2023 dollars) |
Opened | May 24, 1982 |
Location | |
The Seven Mile Bridge is a bridge in the Florida Keys, in Monroe County, Florida, United States. It connects Knight's Key (part of the city of Marathon, Florida) in the Middle Keys to Little Duck Key in the Lower Keys. Among the longest bridges in existence when it was built, it is part of the Overseas Highway in the Keys, which is part of the 2,369-mile (3,813 km) U.S. Route 1. [1] [2]
There are two bridges in this location. The modern bridge is open to vehicular traffic; the older one only to pedestrians and cyclists. The older bridge, originally known as the Knights Key-Pigeon Key-Moser Channel-Pacet Channel Bridge, was constructed from 1909 to 1912 under the direction of Henry Flagler and Clarence S. Coe as part of the Florida East Coast Railway's Key West Extension, also known as the Overseas Railroad.
After the railroad was damaged by the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, the line was sold to the United States government, which refurbished Seven Mile Bridge for automobile use. Unsupported sections were added in 1935 to widen it for vehicular traffic. Dismantled trackage was recycled, painted white, and used as guardrails. It had a swing span to allow passage of boats in the Moser Channel of the Intracoastal Waterway into Hawk Channel, near where the bridge crosses Pigeon Key, a small island that held a work camp for Flagler's railroad. Hurricane Donna in 1960 caused further damage.
In 1977 musician Jimmy Buffett was driving back to Key West when the swing bridge was open and got stuck in the open position causing a 3 hour delay to fix it. To kill time he said he wrote the song Margaritaville while siting on the hood of his car waiting for the bridge to reopen.
The current road bridge was constructed from 1978 to 1982.
The vast majority of the original bridge still exists, although the swing span has been removed. The 2.2-mile (3.5 km) section to Pigeon Key, used as a fishing pier and long open to motorized vehicles to give access to the key, was closed to motorized traffic in 2008 after the unsupported sections began to sag. [3] In 2014, the Florida Department of Transportation approved a $77 million plan to restore the old bridge. [2] By 2017, the pedestrian section was closed for extensive repairs, and reopened in January 2022. [4]
The new bridge is a box-girder structure built from precast, prestressed concrete sections, comprising 440 spans. Near the center, the bridge rises in an arc to provide 65-foot (20 m)-high clearance for boat passage. The remainder of the bridge is considerably closer to the water surface. The new bridge does not cross Pigeon Key.
The total length of the new bridge is actually 35,862 ft (10,931 m) or 6.79 miles (10.93 km), and is shorter than the original. The bridge carries the Florida Keys aqueduct, supplying water to points west, as well as fiber optic cables, providing telecommunications to and from the lower Keys. [5]
Each April, the bridge is closed for about 2.5 hours on a Saturday for the Seven Mile Bridge Run that commemorates the Florida Keys bridge rebuilding project. The event began in 1982 to commemorate the completion of a federally funded bridge building program that replaced spans that oil tycoon Henry Flagler constructed in the early 1900s to serve as a foundation for his Overseas Railroad.
The Seven Mile Bridge was engineered by Figg & Muller Engineers (who also engineered the much taller Sunshine Skyway Bridge). The structure was completed six months ahead of schedule and has earned eight awards, including an Exceptional Award for Cost Savings Innovation from the Federal Highway Administration. [6]
The bridge has been featured in films and television series, such as Road House, Licence to Kill , [7] True Lies , [8] [9] 2 Fast 2 Furious , [10] Burn Notice,and is seen in the upcoming video game Grand Theft Auto VI.
Original Bridge
Current Bridge
The Florida Keys are a coral cay archipelago off the southern coast of Florida, forming the southernmost part of the continental United States. They begin at the southeastern coast of the Florida peninsula, about 15 miles (24 km) south of Miami and extend in a gentle arc south-southwest and then westward to Key West, the westernmost of the inhabited islands, and on to the uninhabited Dry Tortugas. The islands lie along the Florida Straits, dividing the Atlantic Ocean to the east from the Gulf of Mexico to the northwest, and defining one edge of Florida Bay. The southern part of Key West is 93 miles (150 km) from Cuba. The Keys are located between about 24.3 and 25.5 degrees North latitude.
A swing bridge is a movable bridge that can be rotated horizontally around a vertical axis. It has as its primary structural support a vertical locating pin and support ring, usually at or near to its center of gravity, about which the swing span can then pivot horizontally as shown in the animated illustration to the right.
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The Florida East Coast Railway is a Class II railroad operating in the U.S. state of Florida, currently owned by Grupo México.
The Overseas Highway is a 113-mile (181.9 km) highway carrying U.S. Route 1 (US 1) through the Florida Keys to Key West. Large parts of it were built on the former right-of-way of the Overseas Railroad, the Key West Extension of the Florida East Coast Railway. Completed in 1912, the Overseas Railroad was heavily damaged and partially destroyed in the 1935 Labor Day hurricane. The Florida East Coast Railway was financially unable to rebuild the destroyed sections, so the roadbed and remaining bridges were sold to the state of Florida for $640,000.
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The Overseas Railroad was an extension of the Florida East Coast Railway to Key West, a city located 128 miles (206 km) beyond the end of the Florida peninsula. Work on the line started in 1905 and it operated from 1912 to 1935, when it was partially destroyed by the Labor Day Hurricane. Some of the remaining infrastructure was used for the Overseas Highway.
Card Sound Bridge is a high-rise toll causeway connecting southern Miami-Dade County and northern Monroe County. It is one of only two ways that motorists can leave or enter the Florida Keys. The toll for two-axle automobiles is USD $1.50 if paid via SunPass. The prior toll plaza was demolished during hurricane Matthew and has been replaced with a toll-by-plate plaza. The toll fee will be charged by plate automatically and sent via the mail to the address on the vehicle registration. The cashless all-electronic tolling system replaced the previous staffed toll booth on October 20, 2018. The toll fee is waived upon evacuating the Keys for hurricanes or in instances in which US 1 is impassable.
The Pigeon Key Historic District is a U.S. historic district located on Pigeon Key in Florida. The district is off U.S. 1 at mile marker 45. It contains 11 historic buildings and 3 structures. Although the old Seven Mile Bridge crosses over the island, at approximately mile marker 45, west of Knight's Key, and just east of Moser Channel, which is the deepest section of the seven-mile span, it and its exit ramp to the island were closed in 2008 and not reopened until 2022. While the bridge was closed, access was by ferry or private watercraft only, but in 2014 FDOT approved a $77 million plan to restore it. The old bridge was restored and reopened in 2022.
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Bahia Honda is an island in the lower Florida Keys.
Little Duck Key is a small island in the lower Florida Keys.
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Pigeon Key is a small island containing the historic district of Pigeon Key, Florida. The 5-acre (2.0-hectare) island is home to 8 buildings on the National Register of Historic Places, some of which remain from its earliest incarnation as a work camp for the Florida East Coast Railway. Today these buildings serve a variety of purposes, ranging from housing for educational groups to administrative offices for the non-profit Pigeon Key Foundation. The former Assistant Bridge Tender's House has been converted into a small museum featuring artifacts and images from Pigeon Key's colorful past. It is located off the old Seven Mile Bridge, at approximately mile marker 45, west of Knight's Key, and just east of Moser Channel, which is the deepest section of the 7-mile (11 km) span.
The Florida Keys Overseas Heritage Trail is a 106-mile (171 km) paved rail trail—a multi-use bicycle and pedestrian facility—being constructed between Key Largo and Key West in the Florida Keys. As of January 2022, 90 mi (140 km) of the trail has been constructed.
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Clarence Stanley Coe was an American master bridge builder and railroad civil engineer, who supervised the planning and building of the Florida East Coast Railway's Seven Mile Bridge, linking the Florida Keys to Marathon, Monroe County, which, when completed in January 1912, was acclaimed as the longest bridge in the world and an engineering marvel. Later, Coe was appointed the first city manager of Miami, Florida, and after that was appointed chief engineer of Duval County, Florida.