Skip to main content

2017 Southeast Trip Part 12; Turnpiked

After traveling east through the Everglades on US 41/Tamiami Trail I continued to Florida's Turnpike Extension and turned south towards Florida City.


Back when I was living in Florida the Turnpike Extension was still being widened and improved.  Considering the improvement project began circa 2013-2014 when I was working between Orlando and Key West it was a little odd to see that work was still ongoing.


I don't recall the exact exit I used but I bailed off the Turnpike Extension before the terminus in Florida City.  I was heading towards Biscayne National Park and I ended up on SW 137th Avenue in front of Homestead Miami Speedway.  The Speedway opened in 1995 and for the past two decades has been the location of the last NASCAR race of the season.  Originally the track was configured like a 1.5 mile version of Indianapolis Motor Speedway but since has been converted to high banks.







Florida City has all sorts of signage oddities.  FL 997 was created out of FL 27 in 1983 to avoid two routes with the same number touching.  In the case of FL 27 the northern terminus was at US 27 northwest of Miami.  FL 997 is entirely on Krome Avenue and is currently undergoing upgrades to a divided highway.





Florida's Turnpike was in the process of getting new shields when I was passing through Florida City.  I like how the map of Florida shows the Turnpike but would still like the Keys to make an appearance again.





FL 9336 is an infamous numbering of a 9 mile road from US 1 west to Everglades National Park was also formerly part of FL 27.  I'm not sure why the designation was given such an odd number when FL 999 was available.  FL 9336 was part of the Ingraham Highway which was a road built through the Everglades to Flamingo at Cape Sable.  There are some abandoned alignments of the original Ingraham Highway in Everlades National Park which can be seen on Google Maps west from the Royal Palm Visitor Center.


FL 27 can be seen on the 1956 and 1964 State Highway Map of Florida along with the original alignment of the Ingraham Highway to Cape Sable.

1956 Florida State Highway Map

1964 Florida State Highway Map 

Palm Drive and Canal Drive were apparently part of FL 906 which went to Biscayne National Park but was decommissioned in the 1980s.  I'm not sure where FL 906 turned north to connect from Palm Drive to Canal Drive but I believe it was SW 137th Avenue.  Irregardless I took the projected route of FL 906 east to Biscayne National Park.






Not much had changed at Biscayne National Park since 2012 (which is the time frame the previous Florida Friday stub had been written).  I took the boardwalks out as far as I could but really I was just hoping for a distance photo of downtown Miami.  Unfortunately the sky wasn't all that clear and I really couldn't see the sky scrapers to the north.  After looking through the visitor center I traveled back west to Florida City to my hotel to prepare for the next day along the Overseas Highway.












Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Paper Highways: The Unbuilt New Orleans Bypass (Proposed I-410)

  There are many examples around the United States of proposed freeway corridors in urban areas that never saw the light of day for one reason or another. They all fall somewhere in between the little-known and the infamous and from the mundane to the spectacular. One of the more obscure and interesting examples of such a project is the short-lived idea to construct a southern beltway for the New Orleans metropolitan area in the 1960s and 70s. Greater New Orleans and its surrounding area grew rapidly in the years after World War II, as suburban sprawl encroached on the historically rural downriver parishes around the city. In response to the development of the region’s Westbank and the emergence of communities in St. Charles and St. John the Baptist Parishes as viable suburban communities during this period, regional planners began to consider concepts for new infrastructure projects to serve this growing population.  The idea for a circular freeway around the southern perimeter of t

Hernando de Soto Bridge (Memphis, TN)

The newest of the bridges that span the lower Mississippi River at Memphis, the Hernando de Soto Bridge was completed in 1973 and carries Interstate 40 between downtown Memphis and West Memphis, AR. The bridge’s signature M-shaped superstructure makes it an instantly recognizable landmark in the city and one of the most visually unique bridges on the Mississippi River. As early as 1953, Memphis city planners recommended the construction of a second highway bridge across the Mississippi River to connect the city with West Memphis, AR. The Memphis & Arkansas Bridge had been completed only four years earlier a couple miles downriver from downtown, however it was expected that long-term growth in the metro area would warrant the construction of an additional bridge, the fourth crossing of the Mississippi River to be built at Memphis, in the not-too-distant future. Unlike the previous three Mississippi River bridges to be built the city, the location chosen for this bridge was about two

Huey P. Long Bridge (New Orleans, LA)

Located on the lower Mississippi River a few miles west of New Orleans, the Huey P. Long Bridge is an enormous steel truss bridge that carries both road and rail traffic on an old-time structure that is a fascinating example of a bridge that has evolved in recent years to meet the traffic and safety demands of modern times. While officially located in suburban Jefferson Parish near the unincorporated community of Bridge City, this bridge’s location is most often associated with New Orleans, given that it’s the largest and most recognizable incorporated population center in the nearby vicinity. For this reason, this blog article considers the bridge’s location to be in New Orleans, even though this isn’t 100% geographically correct. Completed in 1935 as the first bridge across the Mississippi River in Louisiana and the first to be built in the New Orleans area, this bridge is one of two bridges on the Mississippi named for Huey P. Long, a Louisiana politician who served as the 40th Gove