Port Miami Tunnel
The Port of Miami Tunnel (also State Road 887) is a 4,200-foot (1,300 m) bored, undersea tunnel in Miami, Florida. It consists of two parallel tunnels (one in each direction) that travel beneath Biscayne Bay, connecting the MacArthur Causeway on Watson Island with PortMiami on Dodge Island. It was built in a public–private partnership between three government entities—the Florida Department of Transportation, Miami-Dade County, and the City of Miami—and the private entity MAT Concessionaire LLC, which was in charge of designing, building, and financing the project and holds a 30-year concession to operate the tunnel.
Watson Island entrance | |
| Overview | |
|---|---|
| Location | Miami, Florida |
| Route | SR 887 |
| Start | Watson Island |
| End | Dodge Island |
| Operation | |
| Work begun | May 24, 2010 |
| Constructed | Bouygues Construction |
| Opened | August 3, 2014 |
| Owner | FDOT |
| Operator | MAT Concessionaire, LLC |
| Traffic | Automotive |
| Toll | None |
| Vehicles per day | 7000 (August 2014) |
| Technical | |
| Length | 4,200 feet (1,300 m) |
| No. of lanes | 2 (per tunnel) |
| Operating speed | 35 miles per hour |
| Highest elevation | Sea level |
| Lowest elevation | −120 feet (−37 m) |
| Tunnel clearance | 15 feet (4.6 m) |
| Width | 43 feet (13 m) per tunnel |
| Grade | 5% |
| www | |
State Road 887 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
SR 887 highlighted in black | ||||
| Route information | ||||
| Maintained by FDOT | ||||
| Existed | 2014–present | |||
| Major junctions | ||||
| South end | Port Boulevard on Dodge Island | |||
| North end | SR A1A (MacArthur Causeway), I-395 on Watson Island | |||
| Location | ||||
| Country | United States | |||
| State | Florida | |||
| Highway system | ||||
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The project was approved after decades of planning and discussion in December 2007, but was temporarily cancelled a year later. Construction began in May 2010. The tunnel boring machine began work in November 2011 and completed the second tunnel in May 2013. The tunnel was opened to traffic on August 3, 2014. In the first month after opening, the tunnel averaged 7,000 vehicles per day, and nearly 16,000 vehicles now travel to the port on a typical weekday.