The Golden Glades Interchange, located in
Miami Gardens
Miami Gardens is a city in north-central Miami-Dade County, Florida. It is located north of Downtown Miami with city boundaries that stretch from I-95 and Northeast 2nd Avenue to its east to Northwest 47th and Northwest 57th Avenues to its west ...
and
North Miami Beach
North Miami Beach (commonly referred to as NMB) is a city in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. Originally named "Fulford-by-the-Sea" in 1926 after Captain William H. Fulford of the U.S. Coast Guard, the city was renamed "North Miami Be ...
, Florida, United States, is the confluence of six major roads serving eastern and southern Florida. It is named after the original name of North 167th Street, Golden Glades Road.
Description
![Miami skyline from Golden Glades November 2018](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/Miami_skyline_from_Golden_Glades_November_2018.jpg)
The six highways that come together at the interchange are
U.S. Route 441
U.S. Route 441 (US 441) is a auxiliary route of U.S. Route 41. It extends from US 41 in Miami, Florida to US 25W in Rocky Top, Tennessee. Between its termini, US 441 travels through the states of Florida, Georgia, North ...
(US 441),
Florida's Turnpike
Florida's Turnpike, designated as unsigned State Road 91 (SR 91), is a toll road in the U.S. state of Florida, maintained by Florida's Turnpike Enterprise (FTE). Spanning approximately along a northwest–southeast axis, the turnpike is in two s ...
, the
Palmetto Expressway
Palmetto (meaning "little palm") may refer to:
Palms
Several small palms in the Arecaceae (palm tree) family:
*in the genus ''Sabal'':
**Bermuda palmetto, ''Sabal bermudana''
**Birmingham palmetto, ''Sabal'' 'Birmingham'
**Dwarf, or bush palme ...
(signed State Road 826),
SR 9, North Miami Beach Boulevard (NW 167th Street) and
Interstate 95
Interstate 95 (I-95) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the East Coast of the United States, running from U.S. Route 1, US Route 1 (US 1) in Miami, Miami, Florida, to the Houlton–Woodstock Border Crossing between M ...
(I-95). US 441 bears
SR 7 as a hidden designation, and the turnpike is similarly SR 91. SR 9 is the hidden designation for I-95 north of the interchange but branches southward off I-95 to become a major commercial road on its own accord. South of the interchange, I-95 bears
SR 9A as its hidden designation.
History
The Golden Glades interchange initially opened as an intersection between US 441 and SR 826 in 1953, expanding into its current form in the next decade. Its construction was prompted by a sequence of events spanning 12 years. In 1950, US 441 was extended from downtown
Orlando
Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures rele ...
to
Miami
Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...
to connect with a stretch of
US 41 which sported
US 94 road signs just a year earlier. In 1957, Florida's Turnpike (then called the Sunshine State Parkway) was completed in Dade (later
Miami-Dade
Miami-Dade County is a county located in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Florida. The county had a population of 2,701,767 as of the 2020 census, making it the most populous county in Florida and the seventh-most populous county in ...
) County, joining SR 826 (which, at the time was Golden Glades Drive, an east–west street connecting
US 1 along
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 ...
to
US 27 inland). In 1958, construction of the north–south section of the Palmetto Bypass Expressway started, using SR 826 with a 90-degree eastward curve (the western section of SR 826 was to be abandoned). In 1959, construction of a segment of I-95, from Northwest 20th Street in Miami to
SR 84 in
Fort Lauderdale
A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...
was started, along with
I-195 Interstate 195 (I-195) is the designation for the following Interstate Highways in the United States, all of which are related to I-95:
*Interstate 195 (District of Columbia), a future designation for the north–south portion of I-395 from the Sout ...
and the
Airport Expressway (SR 112) for access to
Miami Beach
Miami Beach is a coastal resort city in Miami-Dade County, Florida. It was incorporated on March 26, 1915. The municipality is located on natural and man-made barrier islands between the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay, the latter of which sep ...
and
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 ...
. In 1961, construction of the Palmetto Bypass Expressway (the name was unofficially shortened in the mid 1960s), the Airport Expressway (then called the 36th Street Tollway), and the segment of I-95 south of Northwest 95th Street in Dade County were completed.
Anticipating increasing traffic to and from Dade County, FDOT broke ground on May 18, 1962, for the new Golden Glades Interchange. The section of I-95 from Golden Glades to SR 84 was completed in 1963; the Golden Glades Interchange and I-95 south to Northwest 95th Street opened on June 9, 1964.
[
The interchange was also known as the Interama Interchange until it was renamed the Golden Glades Interchange in 1977.
Flyovers to a ]commuter train
Commuter rail, or suburban rail, is a passenger rail transport service that primarily operates within a metropolitan area, connecting commuters to a central city from adjacent suburbs or commuter towns. Generally commuter rail systems are consi ...
station and bus terminal
A bus station or a bus interchange is a structure where city or intercity buses stop to pick up and drop off passengers. While the term bus depot can also be used to refer to a bus station, it generally refers to a bus garage. A bus station is la ...
(in the 1970s) and elevated HOV
A high-occupancy vehicle lane (also known as an HOV lane, carpool lane, diamond lane, 2+ lane, and transit lane or T2 or T3 lanes) is a restricted traffic lane reserved for the exclusive use of vehicles with a driver and one or more passengers, i ...
lanes (in 1995) have been added to it to accommodate the growing regional population, which has more than doubled since the interchange's opening. There were plans in the 1980s to reconstruct the interchange, but they were dropped due to high construction costs. The Golden Glades has been expanded and worked on several times over the years and is seen as a bottleneck in traffic on all the roads it incorporates.
In 2017, the Florida Department of Transportation plans to widen the turnpike connector to I-95 to five lanes, including two lanes from the turnpike and three lanes from the eastbound Palmetto Expressway. Three lanes will exit to a relocated off-ramp to State Road 7 while the other three lanes will continue to I-95, which will get another lane between the Golden Glades and Northwest 151st Street. The entrance to the southbound express lanes south of the Golden Glades also will be moved 300 feet further south. In addition, the eastbound Palmetto ramp to I-95 will be widened to three lanes – two to southbound I-95 and one on a new direct ramp to northbound I-95.
See also
*Transportation in South Florida
The Greater Miami area, composed of the three counties of Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach, also known collectively as South Florida, is home to a wide variety of public and private transportation systems. These include heavy rail mass tra ...
*Dolphin–Palmetto Interchange
The Dolphin–Palmetto Interchange, also known as 826–836, is a complex four-level stack interchange in Miami-Dade County, Florida. It primarily serves as a highway interchange between State Road 826 (SR 826, Palmetto Expressway) a ...
*Midtown Interchange
The Midtown Interchange, located in the Civic Center and Overtown neighborhoods of Miami, Florida, is the convergence of three major motorways: I-95, I-395 (which connects to the MacArthur Causeway to the east), and the Dolphin Expressway (SR 83 ...
*Rainbow Interchange
The Rainbow Interchange was a four–level stack interchange located in Fort Lauderdale, Florida near the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. The interchange connects two major highways in the area, I-95 (leading to Miami and West Pa ...
References
{{North Miami Beach
Interstate 95
U.S. Route 441
Road interchanges in the United States
North Miami Beach, Florida
Miami Gardens, Florida
1953 establishments in Florida