Tamiami Trail and Aligator Alley RDF-09

Photo- Just one of the natural public lands along the Tamiami Trail.

The Tamiami Trail is the southernmost 264 miles of U.S. Highway 41 from State Road 60 in Tampa to U.S. Route 1 in Miami. The 165-mile north–south section extends from Tampa to Naples. Then it becomes an east–west road, crossing the Everglades and forming part of the northern border of Everglades National Park on its way to Miami. Construction on the north–south section began in 1915.

After Lee County ran out of money for the project, and some political end-fighting between developers Captain Jaudon and Barron Collier, the east-west route was changed to the south and then changed back in 1925. The final section of the Trail was completed in April 1928.

The Tamiami Trail took 13 years and cost $8 million to build. Now a National Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark, the Bay City Walking Dredge that was used to build the Tamiami Trail through the Everglades is on display at Collier-Seminole State Park (Site #    ). That Florida State Park is located on US 41, 17 miles south of Naples.

In 1928, the Tamiami Trail was considered a feat of engineering, although no one considered the potential damage to the Everglades. It has acted as a dam to block water flow from Lake Okeechobee to Florida Bay. As a result the Everglades has had its water flow greatly diminished over the years, resulting in a devastating effect on the ecology of the region. In the 1990’s a few canals were filled and additional culverts were constructed under US 41 to help facilitate water flow.

Yet this was only a partial solution to the problems of the Everglades and the Tamiami Trail.In 2011 the US Army Corps of Engineers began building a 5000-foot-long elevated bridge near Shark Slough in Everglades National Park. The remaining roadbed has been improved to allow higher water levels adjacent to the road for more water flow through the culverts that are already in place.  Shark River Slough is one of the Everglades’ deepest and most important water passageways.  The bridge will be an important first step in returning the historic water sheet flow through parched Everglades National Park and into Florida Bay. It will be beneficial to wildlife by reducing habitat fragmentation and preventing road kill. The project will create jobs and increase tourism while raising Everglades awareness at the same time. Increased fresh water flow may also help protect the Everglades from salt water intrusion if sea levels rise in the future.

Everglades National Park (Site #    ), Big Cypress Preserve (Site #    ), Seminole-Collier State Park (Site #    ), Picayune Strand State Forest (Site #      ) are located along the Tamiami Trail.

A true turning point for development in the Everglades came in 1969 when a replacement airport was proposed as Miami International Airport outgrew its capacities.  Dade County Port Authority bought 39 square miles of land in the Big Cypress Swamp without consulting the water management district, the management of Everglades National Park or the Department of the Interior. Park management learned of the official agreement to build the jetport from The Miami Herald the day it was announced. The new jetport was planned to be larger than O'Hare, Dulles, JFK, and LAX airports combined.  The location chosen was along Tamiami Trail 6 miles north of the Everglades National Park. 

The water management authority went on the offensive and brought the jetport proposal to national attention by mailing letters about it to 100 conservation groups. The jetport was intended to support a community of a million people and employ 60,000.  When studies indicated the proposed jetport would create 4 million gallons of raw sewage a day and thousands of tons of jet engine pollutants a year, the national media started to pay attention. The 78-year-old author Marjory Stoneman Douglas was persuaded to go on tour to give hundreds of speeches against it. President Nixon established Big Cypress National Preserve in his Special Message to the Congress Outlining the 1972 Environmental Program. 

Following the jetport proposition, restoration of the Everglades became an international priority. In the 1970’s the Everglades were declared an International Biosphere Reserve and a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, and a Wetland of International Importance by the Ramsar Convention. The single runway Dade Training and Transitional airport is all that stands on the site today, and can be seen from the Big Cypress National Preserve Welcome Center. 

Alligator Alley roughly parallels the Tamiami Trail about 30 miles to the north. Construction started n 1964, and it opened to traffic in 1969as a two-lane toll road connecting the two coasts of Florida as State (Toll) Road 84 “The Everglades Parkway”. Originally despairingly nick-named “Alligator Alley” by AAA due to tolls and a two lane design, the State taunted back by officially naming it Alligator Alley in August 1966. Engineering allowed for eventual widening to four lanes, but the initial road was two lanes wide and arrow straight. 

Signs posted along the route encouraged motorists to use headlights for safety. Many high speed head-on passing crashes occurred on the road until it was made a four lane Interstate.   Borrow canals flank the route, where dirt was dug up from both side to raise the roadway 7 feet above the wet season flood zone. The construction avoided the dam effect that the Tamiami Trail had caused 40 years earlier by putting in bridges every mile or so, which allowed a much more natural water flow than the Trail.

 It was determined in 1973 that Interstate 75 would use this route for the Tampa-Miami extension instead of the Tamiami Trail because of the initial engineering, land purchases, and fore-thought practiced during construction.  It was widened to four lanes between 1986 and 1992, with many bridges re-designed to let water and wildlife pass underneath. This helped to reduce the environmental impact of the highway, especially upon the endangered Florida panther.