The Seven Mile Bridge is a

bridge A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually someth ...

in the

Florida Keys The Florida Keys are a coral cay archipelago located off the southern coast of Florida, forming the southernmost part of the continental United States. They begin at the southeastern coast of the Florida peninsula, about south of Miami, and e ...

, in

Monroe County Monroe County may refer to seventeen counties in the United States, all named for James Monroe: *Monroe County, Alabama * Monroe County, Arkansas * Monroe County, Florida *Monroe County, Georgia * Monroe County, Illinois * Monroe County, Indi ...

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 ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

. It connects Knight's Key (part of the city of

Marathon, Florida Marathon is a city spread over Knight's Key, Boot Key, Key Vaca, Fat Deer Key, Long Point Key, Crawl Key and Grassy Key islands in the middle of the Florida Keys, in Monroe County, Florida, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city had a ...

) in the Middle Keys to Little Duck Key in the Lower Keys. Among the longest bridges in existence when it was built, it is part of the Overseas Highway in the Keys, which is part of the U.S. Route 1. There are two bridges in this location. The modern bridge is open to vehicular traffic; the older one only to pedestrians and cyclists. The older bridge, originally known as the Knights Key-Pigeon Key-Moser Channel-Pacet Channel Bridge, was constructed from 1909 to 1912 under the direction of

Henry Flagler Henry Morrison Flagler (January 2, 1830 – May 20, 1913) was an American industrialist and a founder of Standard Oil, which was first based in Ohio. He was also a key figure in the development of the Atlantic coast of Florida and founder ...

and Clarence S. Coe as part of the

Florida East Coast Railway The Florida East Coast Railway is a Class II railroad operating in the U.S. state of Florida, currently owned by Grupo México. Built primarily in the last quarter of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century, the FEC was a p ...

's Key West Extension, also known as the Overseas Railroad.

History

After the railroad was damaged by the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, the line was sold to the

United States government The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a feder ...

, which refurbished Seven Mile Bridge for

automobile A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods. The year 1886 is regarded ...

use. Unsupported sections were added in 1935 to widen it for vehicular traffic. Dismantled trackage was recycled, painted white, and used as guardrails. It had a

swing span A swing bridge (or swing span bridge) is a movable bridge that has as its primary structural support a vertical locating pin and support ring, usually at or near to its center of gravity, about which the swing span (turning span) can then pi ...

to allow passage of boats in the

Moser Channel Moser Channel is the deepest passage spanned by the Seven Mile Bridge and is one of four predominant passages in the Florida Keys which allow exchange of waters to the north and west of the Keys (including Florida Bay and the Gulf of Mexico) wit ...

of 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 t ...

, near where the bridge crosses Pigeon Key, a small island that held a work camp for Flagler's railroad.

Hurricane Donna Hurricane Donna, known in Puerto Rico as Hurricane San Lorenzo, was the strongest hurricane of the 1960 Atlantic hurricane season, and caused severe damage to the Lesser Antilles, the Greater Antilles, and the East Coast of the United States, e ...

in 1960 caused further damage. The current road bridge was constructed from 1978 to 1982. The vast majority of the original bridge still exists, although the swing span has been removed. The section to Pigeon Key, used as a fishing pier and long open to motorized vehicles to give access to the key, was closed to motorized traffic in 2008 after the unsupported sections began to sag. In 2014, the

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 ...

approved a $77 million plan to restore the old bridge. By 2017, the pedestrian section was closed for extensive repairs, and reopened in January 2022.

Engineering

The new bridge is a box-girder structure built from precast,

prestressed concrete Prestressed concrete is a form of concrete used in construction. It is substantially "prestressed" ( compressed) during production, in a manner that strengthens it against tensile forces which will exist when in service. Post-tensioned concreted ...

sections, comprising 440 spans. Near the center, the bridge rises in an arc to provide -high clearance for boat passage. The remainder of the bridge is considerably closer to the water surface. The new bridge does not cross Pigeon Key. The total length of the new bridge is actually or , and is shorter than the original. The bridge carries the Florida Keys aqueduct, supplying water to points west, as well as fiber optic cables, providing telecommunications to and from the lower Keys. Each April, the bridge is closed for about 2.5 hours on a Saturday for the

Seven Mile Bridge Run The Seven Mile Bridge run is an annual race held in the Florida Keys by the Marathon Runners Club. The race is run as a benefit for youth activities in Marathon, Florida. The event was first held in 1982 to commemorate the completion of the Florida ...

that commemorates the

bridge rebuilding project. The event began in 1982 to commemorate the completion of a federally funded bridge building program that replaced spans that oil tycoon

constructed in the early 1900s to serve as a foundation for his Overseas Railroad. The Seven Mile Bridge was engineered by Figg & Muller Engineers (who also engineered the much taller Sunshine Skyway Bridge). The structure was completed six months ahead of schedule and has earned eight awards, including an Exceptional Award for Cost Savings Innovation from the Federal Highway Administration.

In fiction

The bridge has been featured in films and television series, such as ''

Licence to Kill ''Licence to Kill'' is a 1989 spy film, the sixteenth in the ''James Bond'' series produced by Eon Productions, and the second and final film to star Timothy Dalton as the MI6 agent James Bond. It sees Bond suspended from MI6 as he pursu ...

'', ''

True Lies ''True Lies'' is a 1994 American spy action comedy film written and directed by James Cameron. It stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Arnold, Art Malik, Tia Carrere, Bill Paxton, Eliza Dushku, Grant Heslov and Charlton Heston. I ...

'', ''

2 Fast 2 Furious ''2 Fast 2 Furious'' is a 2003 action film directed by John Singleton from a screenplay by Michael Brandt and Derek Haas, from a story by Brandt, Haas, and Gary Scott Thompson. It is the sequel to ''The Fast and the Furious'' (2001), and is ...

'', and ''

Burn Notice ''Burn Notice'' is an American espionage television series created by Matt Nix, which originally aired on the USA Network for a total of seven seasons from June 28, 2007, to September 12, 2013. The show stars Jeffrey Donovan, Gabrielle Anwar ...

.''

Gallery

Original Bridge File:East Coast Railway train crossing Moser Channel on the Key West extension of the Overseas Railroad (12480734864).jpg, Illustration of FEC train crossing the bridge File:Moser Channel Bridge, draw span partially open, no date (Kyle K-32). - Seven Mile Bridge, Linking Florida Keys, Marathon, Monroe County, FL HAER FLA,44-KNIKE,1-68.tif, Moser Channel swing span in the railroad-era File:Pigeon Key from the Seven Mile Bridge, Florida Keys (8591385115).jpg, Approaching Pigeon Key post-highway conversion. Guardrails are made up of rails from the former railroad. File:Seven Mile Bridge, Florida Keys (8592496566).jpg, 1955 view of the bridge. File:Traffic waiting for Moser Channel turnstile bridge.jpg, Traffic waiting for the open swing span over Moser Channel. File:Pigeon Key FL old bridge02.jpg, Severed segment after the bridge was closed to traffic. Current Bridge File:A324, Seven Mile Bridge, Florida Keys, USA, 2010.JPG, Current bridge File:Seven miles bridge.jpg, Surface of the current bridge with original bridge and Pigeon Key in the background

References

External links