Talk:Overseas Highway

Details about original alignment

ca. 1935 maps, 1937 maps, old USGS topos

• Key West: current by 1937, except Roosevelt Boulevard may have been slightly realigned between George Street and 8th Street: [1]; ca. 1935 probably used CR 5A
• Stock Island: northbound lanes (railroad was on southbound), then MacDonald Avenue / Maloney Avenue to about Harbor Boulevard
• across Boca Chica Channel
• Boca Chica Key / Geiger Key: CR 941 to the end of Geiger Road
• across the north tip of Bird Key
• Saddlebunch Keys / Sugarloaf Key: CR 939, then curving across current US 1
• across Bow Channel a bit north of current bridge
• Cudjoe Key: Old SR 4A
• across Kemp Channel a bit north of current bridge
• Summerland Key: Center Street
• across Niles Channel a bit north of current bridge
• Ramrod Key: SR 4A
• across Torch Ramrod Channel and Torch Channel a bit north of current bridges
• Little Torch Key: curving into SR 4A
• across Pine Channel
• Big Pine Key / No Name Key: Watson Boulevard
• long ferry (rail alignment had been repurposed by 1937, using Key Deer Boulevard on Big Pine Key)
• Vaca Key: probably came in at 11th Street, then followed a now-discontinuous road just north of the trail (with a more northerly alignment between Charlotte Avenue and 36th Street)
• across Vaca Cut just north of current bridge
• Fat Deer Key / Long Point Key / Crawl Key / Grassy Key: mostly along the trail, curving more northerly near Grassy Key RV Park, back to just north of current US 1 near the Dolphin Research Center, and away to the dock at Dorsett Drive
• long ferry (rail alignment had been repurposed by 1937)
• Lower Matecumbe Key: ferry dock near Toll Gate Boulevard (unfinished bridge construction to the west), then along the trail or road just to the north
• across several channels, probably just north of current bridges (the ca. 1935 map doesn't show this area properly, since it's missing the rail crossing at La-Siesta Resort); the rail bridges were probably just south of the current bridges: see 1959 aerials [2][3]
• Upper Matecumbe Key: began on the north side of current US 1, crossing at La-Siesta Resort and following obvious unnamed (?) old road all the way to North Hammock Drive
• across Whale Harbor Channel just south of current bridge (which is on the site of the old rail bridge): 1959 aerial
• Windley Key: CR 905
• across Snake Creek right around the current bridge (the rail bridge, later used by the highway, was a bit to the north)
• Plantation Key: weigh station and unnamed (?) old road
• across Tavernier Creek at the current northbound bridge
• Key Largo: current northbound US 1 (except for Albury Boulevard and unnamed road at Julep Road), then CR 905 and old alignment, turning west on abandoned road to join CR 905A west of Steamboat Creek
• across Card Sound at the current bridge, except for a pair of S-curves west of Saunders Creek

The only definite rail crossings were on Sugarloaf Key and Upper Matecumbe Key. By ca. 1935, US 1 didn't even cross the FEC mainline on the mainland until Hobe Sound. --NE2 03:29, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Where's the north end?

I'm finding a bunch of sources that say it's at CR 905 (MM 106.5). 127.5 comes mainly from Wikipedia mirrors. --NE2 03:58, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Many mile markers are slightly off

User:NE2/Overseas: as you can see, most are within 1/10 mi (500 feet), but MM 107+ are all about 3/10 mi south of where they should be (in other words, US 1 is currently 3/10 mi shorter than one would think based on these markers). Anyone know why? Was the mileage recalculated at some point, but these were not moved? (Incidentally, the worst from 0-106 is MM 34, which is about 900 feet north of its proper location.) --NE2 04:37, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

About Longest Span

I am not a native English speaker and I am aware that the word span can have different meanings according to the context. But I see that the usage of mainspan in the template Infobox bridge is coherent with the definition in Span_(architecture): the distance between two intermediate supports. As I understand, technically Overseas Highway is not a single bridge. It is a highway that includes several bridges, the longest of which is the Seven_Mile_Bridge. Checking the Seven Mile Bridge page (and also the cited reference), it has a maximum span (as for the above definition) of 41.15 meters. I do not know if that is the maximum for the whole Overseas Highway, i.e. for all the bridges that are part of it. But certainly 41.15 meters is closer to that maximum than 10 km, that is the full length of the Seven Mile Bridge (the length and the maximum span of a bridge would be equal only for bridges that have to intermediate supports).

In the comment to my edit, that was reverted, I pointed for comparison to the List_of_longest_suspension_bridge_spans, where the bridges with longest spans are enumerated. Note that all the bridges with spans of that length are suspension bridges for obvious architectural constraints, so the page could also be called List of longest bridge spans. 10 km would be five times the maximum span of the bridges at the top of that list.

IMHO either the template of the infobox should be changed (may be to Infobox road) or the bridge template should be used coherently to how it is used for describing other bridges.

Miguel.ceriani (talk) 13:34, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

References