On Sunday April 13th, construction on the flyover bridge connecting the Rickenbacker Causeway to US-1 South and I-95 North began in Key Biscayne. The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) explained in a statement that the purpose of the construction was to rehabilitate the nearly 50 year old bridge for the safety of the traveling public.
The construction on the flyover bridge meant the closure of the these north and south exits, resulting in bumper to bumper traffic as people tried to leave Key Biscayne. The heavy traffic resulted in demand from both Key Biscayne residents and visitors alike to postpone the rehabilitation project, including a change.org petition with over 2,300 signatures.
When asked to share any contingency plans for minimizing traffic to MAST Academy, principal Dr. Collman-Perez explained how concerns were expressed to the Miami-Dade County’s school operations department.
“My goal of transmitting that correspondence was to devise a plan with the district to ensure our students and staff would not experience delays during the work week,” Dr. Collman-Perez explained in an email to The Beacon staff.
On April 14th, the I-95 North Exit was reopened and by April 17th the flyover bridge was entirely reopened. As the bridge was reopened, guardrails were installed onto the bridge.
FDOT claimed that the rehabilitation process was initially going to last 2 months, they have since begun re-evaluating the construction process in order to preserve movement in and out of Key Biscayne.
“Moving forward, the Department (FDOT) will continue coordination with local officials, including local law enforcement, on revised traffic management plans and signalization coordination,” FDOT said in a tweet on X.
FDOT explained how their would be traffic in the future, however they are still working on a plan with local officials before construction continues to ensure minimized disruption. Until then, traffic will continue as normal.
