State Road 401 (SR 401) is a four-lane highway extending from a southern terminus at a

trumpet interchange In the field of road transport, an interchange (American English) or a grade-separated junction (British English) is a road junction that uses grade separations to allow for the movement of traffic between two or more roadways or highways, usi ...

with the Martin Andersen Beachline Expressway (formerly the Bee Line Expressway) and SR A1A to a northern terminus of the south gate of

Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) is an installation of the United States Space Force's Space Launch Delta 45, located on Cape Canaveral in Brevard County, Florida. Headquartered at the nearby Patrick Space Force Base, the statio ...

near Cape Canaveral. It is one of the shortest signed roads in the State of

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

. The route designation was established in June 1956.

Route description

While the highway continues beyond the station gate (as Samuel C. Phillips Parkway) to the

launch pad A launch pad is an above-ground facility from which a rocket-powered missile or space vehicle is vertically launched. The term ''launch pad'' can be used to describe just the central launch platform ( mobile launcher platform), or the entir ...

s of the

Kennedy Space Center The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC, originally known as the NASA Launch Operations Center), located on Merritt Island, Florida, is one of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten field centers. Since December 1968 ...

, the state designation no longer does, as

civilian Civilians under international humanitarian law are "persons who are not members of the armed forces" and they are not " combatants if they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war". It is slightly different from a non-combatant ...

s and most

military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...

personnel not assigned to the station are generally not permitted beyond the gate.

History

Before the construction of the Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral SFS, the current SR 401 was a segment of SR A1A that extended from

Fort Pierce Fort Pierce is a city in and the county seat of St. Lucie County, Florida, United States. The city is part of the Treasure Coast region of Atlantic Coast Florida. It is also known as the Sunrise City, sister to San Francisco, California, the Suns ...

to Playalinda Beach; afterwards, but before the completion of the Bee Line, SR A1A continued northward along Atlantic Avenue into Cape Canaveral, then turning westward onto George King Boulevard and then northward onto (present-day) Samuel C. Phillips Parkway and ending at the station's gate. When the Bee Line's eastern extension was opened to traffic in June 1956, SR A1A was shifted over to Astronaut Boulevard and the new toll road, and the former alignment was given the SR 401 designation (with SR 401 having its northern terminus at an intersection with SR 405 and the then- SR 402 in Cape Canaveral AFS). The section of SR 401 passing through the City of Cape Canaveral eventually lost its route signs and designation (becoming County Road 401 in the process), resulting in the current, much-shortened configuration of SR 401.

Major intersections

References

External links

{{Attached KML

401 __NOTOC__ Year 401 ( CDI) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Vincentius and Fravitus (or, less frequently, year 1154 ' ...

Cape Canaveral Space Force Station