State Road 732 (SR 732) comprises two segments of a state highway in the

Jensen Beach, Florida Jensen Beach is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Martin County, Florida, United States. The population was 12,652 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Port St. Lucie, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area. Histor ...

vicinity. The western segment is a part of Jensen Beach Boulevard between

U.S. Route 1 U.S. Route 1 or U.S. Highway 1 (US 1) is a major north–south United States Numbered Highway that serves the East Coast of the United States. It runs from Key West, Florida, north to Fort Kent, Maine, at the Canadian border, making i ...

(US 1) and County Road 723 (CR 723) and CR 707A. The eastern segment consists of Causeway Boulevard and the Jensen Beach Causeway over the

Indian River Lagoon The Indian River Lagoon is a grouping of three lagoons: the Mosquito Lagoon, the Banana River, and the Indian River, on the Atlantic Coast of Florida; one of the most biodiverse estuaries in the Northern Hemisphere and is home to more than 4,300 ...

and runs between CR 707 and SR A1A.

Route description

The eastern segment of SR 732 begins at the intersection of Federal Highway (US 1 and unsigned SR 5) and Jensen Beach Boulevard in northern

unincorporated Unincorporated may refer to: * Unincorporated area, land not governed by a local municipality * Unincorporated entity, a type of organization * Unincorporated territories of the United States, territories under U.S. jurisdiction, to which Congress ...

Martin County. Along US 1, the state road is signed as CR 732. The four-lane

divided highway A dual carriageway ( BE) or divided highway ( AE) is a class of highway with carriageways for traffic travelling in opposite directions separated by a central reservation (BrE) or median (AmE). Roads with two or more carriageways which are ...

heads east along Jensen Beach Boulevard first in a commercial business area, then passing the entrance to a park and

Jensen Beach High School Jensen Beach High School (JBHS) is a public high school in Jensen Beach, Florida. History JBHS opened in August 2004 with an enrollment of 1100 students in grades 9 through 11. A senior class was added the following year. It was an open choice sch ...

, finally into a less developed area. The road provides the access to some housing developments and Savannas Preserve State Park. Nearly from its start, the divided highway ends but the road remains a four-lane road with a

center turn lane A reversible lane (British English: tidal flow) is a lane in which traffic may travel in either direction, depending on certain conditions. Typically, it is meant to improve traffic flow during rush hours, by having overhead traffic lights and li ...

provided. More businesses begin to line the road. The state road ends at the signalized intersection of Savannah Road (CR 723) but Jensen Beach Boulevard continues east towards Ocean Breeze as CR 707A. FL732 Sign (29885046176)

SR 732 resumes north of Ocean Breeze at a

roundabout A roundabout is a type of circular intersection or junction in which road traffic is permitted to flow in one direction around a central island, and priority is typically given to traffic already in the junction.''The New Shorter Oxford En ...

with NE Pineapple Avenue and NE Indian River Drive (CR 707). The road crosses a small inlet on a short bridge before landing on an island featuring the Jensen Beach Causeway Park. After park entrances on both sides of the road, the road crosses the main channel of the Indian River and the

Intracoastal Waterway The Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) is a inland waterway along the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts of the United States, running from Massachusetts southward along the Atlantic Seaboard and around the southern tip of Florida, then following th ...

on the Frank A. Wacha Bridge. The east side of this bridge is another small island with parkland. After crossing a final inlet on a small bridge, SR 732 enters Hutchinson Island. Two entrances to housing complexes are provided on the road before the state road ends at a roundabout with Ocean Boulevard (SR A1A) and Jensen Sea Turtle Beach.

History

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, SR A1A was only partially constructed along the

barrier island Barrier islands are coastal landforms and a type of Dune, dune system that are exceptionally flat or lumpy areas of sand that form by wave and tidal action parallel to the mainland coast. They usually occur in chains, consisting of anything fro ...

between Stuart and

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 ...

. In the interim, the present CR 707 (then part of SR 707) had "Temporary A1A" signs while both the present CR 707 and SR 732 were signed State Road A1A Alternate. When construction was finished in the mid 1960s, the "Temporary A1A" and "Alternate A1A" signs were removed, the Jensen Beach Causeway became SR 732, and the mainland part of Alternate SR A1A was absorbed by SR 707 (at the same time, SR A1A absorbed a 1.5-mile-long SR 705 that extended southward from the eastern end of SR 732 as the famed highway was extended along the shoreline to Stuart). In the late 1990s and early 2000s, some commercially prepared road maps incorrectly showed SR 732 extending westward on the mainland to an intersection with Federal Highway (

US 1 U.S. Route 1 or U.S. Highway 1 (US 1) is a major north–south United States Numbered Highway that serves the East Coast of the United States. It runs from Key West, Florida, north to Fort Kent, Maine, at the Canadian border, making i ...

/ SR 5) in West Jensen. The purported "mainland stretch" of SR 732, along Commercial Street (which was later renamed Jensen Beach Boulevard), was formerly SR 707A, which was transitioned from state to county control and maintenance in the mid-to-late 1990s. The confusion arises from the redesignation of the former SR 707A as County Road 732. The original causeway consisted of a wooden bridge with a hand-operated draw span opened in 1924. Between 1955 and 1965, the wooden bridge was replaced gradually with a new concrete, electrically operated drawbridge named for Frank A. Wacha Sr. who helped raise funds for the new bridge. In 2004, the 1960s drawbridge was planned to be replaced with a new high-level fixed crossing. The drawbridge's replacement was intended to save on the high operating costs of the drawbridge, but prior to the new bridge's opening in March 2005,

Hurricane Jeanne Hurricane Jeanne was a Saffir–Simpson scale, Category 3 hurricane that struck the Caribbean and the Eastern United States in September 2004. It was the deadliest hurricane in the Atlantic basin since Hurricane Mitch, Mitch in 1998 Atlantic hur ...

damaged the span and eroded away a section of the causeway road.

Major intersections

References

External links

* {{commons category inline, Florida State Road 732

732 __NOTOC__ Year 732 ( DCCXXXII) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 732 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era ...