Flagler Street is a main east–west road in

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at th ...

. Flagler Street is the

latitudinal In geography, latitude is a coordinate that specifies the north–south position of a point on the surface of the Earth or another celestial body. Latitude is given as an angle that ranges from –90° at the south pole to 90° at the north ...

baseline that divides all the streets on the Miami-Dade County

grid plan In urban planning, the grid plan, grid street plan, or gridiron plan is a type of city plan in which streets run at right angles to each other, forming a grid. Two inherent characteristics of the grid plan, frequent intersections and orthogo ...

as north or south streets (the east-west division is along

Miami Avenue Miami Avenue is a main north–south street running through Coconut Grove, Brickell, Downtown, and Midtown in Miami, Florida. It is the meridian road dividing the street grid of Miami and Miami-Dade County into east and west avenues. Route desc ...

). Flagler Street is named after industrialist Henry Flagler and serves as a major commercial east–west highway through central Miami-Dade County, with a mixture of residential neighborhoods (featuring apartment complexes) and strip malls, the commercial presence increasing as SR 968 approaches downtown Miami. Between SR 973 ( Galloway Road/West 87th Avenue) and West 2nd Avenue, Flagler Street is signed State Road 968 (SR 968).

Route description

State Road 968 begins at Galloway Road in

Fontainebleau Fontainebleau (; ) is a commune in the metropolitan area of Paris, France. It is located south-southeast of the centre of Paris. Fontainebleau is a sub-prefecture of the Seine-et-Marne department, and it is the seat of the ''arrondissement ...

, as it takes the six lane Flagler Street east through a mostly commercial area with residential housing dotting the street as it quickly approaches the

Mall of the Americas Midway Crossings is an enclosed shopping mall located at 7795 West Flagler Street next to the Palmetto Expressway in Miami, Florida. The anchor stores are The Home Depot, Costco, Marshalls, Ross Dress for Less, and a Florida Department of Highway ...

(formerly Midway Mall) to the north and the interchange with the Palmetto Expressway at the eastern end of the mall. Seven blocks east of the interchange, the road enters the city of Miami proper after crossing the Tamiami Canal one block west of the intersection with Milam Dairy Road and becomes a four lane road from here until reaching I-95. At NW 67th Court, the divided highway comes together as a four lane road continuing east, with business lining both sides of the street. Following Red Road ( West 57th Avenue), it reaches Flagler Memorial Park to the north, as the road continues east through more businesses and apartment complexes. The road then intersects with LeJeune Road (West 42nd Avenue), which provides access to

Miami International Airport Miami International Airport , also known as MIA and historically as Wilcox Field, is the primary airport serving the greater Miami metropolitan area with over 1,000 daily flights to 167 domestic and international destinations, including most co ...

, with SR 968 continuing east towards central Miami. At the northwest corner of the intersection with West 27th Avenue (SR 9) sits the Miami-Dade Auditorium

concert hall A concert hall is a cultural building with a stage that serves as a performance venue and an auditorium filled with seats. This list does not include other venues such as sports stadia, dramatic theatres or convention centres that m ...

, as Flagler Street continues east for three more blocks, until at NW 24th Avenue, the road becomes a one way pair, with Flagler Street going westbound, and SW 1st Street going eastbound and both roads featuring commercial businesses and parks. The road then intersects West 17th Avenue just a few blocks south of Marlins Park, as SR 968 enters Central

. From 12th Avenue West to the Miami River, Flagler Street features one eastbound lane with three westbound lanes, with the intersection with US 441/ SR 7 (West 7th Street) just four blocks west of the Miami River drawbridges. Immediately after, it reaches

I-95 Interstate 95 (I-95) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the East Coast of the United States, running from US Route 1 (US 1) in Miami, Florida, to the Houlton–Woodstock Border Crossing between Maine and the Canadi ...

, with access via nearby streets. The rest of the road features government and business skyscrapers and metro rapid transit trackage towering over the road. At SW 2nd Avenue, SR 968 meets its eastern terminus, and Flagler Street (former SR 968) is once again a two-way street, with one lane in each direction. At

, Flagler Street forms the center of Miami, as Miami Avenue represents the baseline for east and west. The road becomes East Flagler Street as it continues through central Miami, terminating at Biscayne Boulevard ( U.S. Route 1), with

Bayfront Park Bayfront Park is a public, urban park in Downtown Miami, Florida on Biscayne Bay. The Chairman to the trust is Ary Shaeban. Located in the park is a bronze statue of Christopher Columbus sculpted by Count Vittorio di Colbertaldo of Verona, one ...

, featuring a scenic view of

Biscayne Bay Biscayne Bay () is a lagoon with characteristics of an estuary located on the Atlantic coast of South Florida. The northern end of the lagoon is surrounded by the densely developed heart of the Miami metropolitan area while the southern end is la ...

just east of the end of Flagler Street. Beyond SR 968's western terminus, West Flagler Street extends west to State Road 985 to end at an intersection with West 118th Avenue in

Tamiami Tamiami is a census-designated place (CDP) in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. The population was 55,271 at the 2010 census. Name The name ''Tamiami'' is a portmanteau of the phrase "Tampa to Miami". The Tamiami Trail, a roadway that ...

, just west of the Homestead Extension.

History

Formerly State Road 954, Flagler Street received its current

Florida Department of Transportation The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) is a decentralized agency charged with the establishment, maintenance, and regulation of public transportation in the state of Florida. The department was formed in 1969. It absorbed the powers of t ...

designation in 1983, when FDOT reassigned route numbers to various streets in southeastern Florida and removed the SR 968 designation from North Miami Boulevard (now State Road 922). SR 968's original western terminus was at an intersection with SR 985 (Avenue of the Americas/West 107th Avenue). In 1987, FDOT truncated the westernmost two miles of the route to its current configuration. SR 968's original eastern terminus was at Biscayne Boulevard ( US 1) in Miami, until FDOT turned over the section between US 1 and SW 2nd Avenue to the city of Miami. As a condition for the relinquishment of Brickell Avenue ( US 1) to the city of Miami, FDOT plans to adopt both SE 1st Street and NE 1st Street in downtown Miami as part of SR 968 and re-connect the route to Biscayne Boulevard.City of Miami Legislation Resolution. File Number: 13-00581
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Major intersections

Gallery

Image:Flaglerstreet Miami 1945.jpg, Flagler Street on August 15, 1945, 20 minutes after the announcement of Japan's surrender at the end of World War II. File:WalgreenDrugStoreMiami.jpg, La Época Department Store, a local Miami

department store A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store made a dramatic app ...

in the historic 1930s Walgreens Building at 200 E Flagler Street File:Miami FL Downtown HD 101 East Flagler01.jpg, 101 East Flagler Street File:Flagler St Bridge from North River Drive - Miami, Florida (2016).jpg, The Flagler Street Bridge over the Miami River is a

drawbridge A drawbridge or draw-bridge is a type of moveable bridge typically at the entrance to a castle or tower surrounded by a moat. In some forms of English, including American English, the word ''drawbridge'' commonly refers to all types of moveable ...

References

External links

{{Greater Miami Roads in Miami Roads in Miami-Dade County, Florida Shopping districts and streets in the United States