Bridging the Tamiami Trail
NPCA achieved a milestone victory with the raising of a one mile section of the Tamiami Trail. NPCA has worked for many years on addressing the damage caused by this historic road in Miami-Dade County. The Tamiami Trail, an environmentally damaging engineering feat built in 1928, runs for 275 miles from Downtown Miami along the northern edge of Everglades National Park, through Big Cypress National Preserve, and ends in Tampa on Florida's west coast.
The Tamiami Trail acts as a dam for Everglades waterflow as it cuts the River of Grass right through the center. Most damaging is an eleven mile section of this road that lay on top of Northeast Shark River Slough, a deep waterway that is the primary source of water for Everglades National Park and Florida Bay. These areas are constantly starved of freshwater when it’s most needed while polluted water is shunted out to fragile estuaries in the ocean.
On December 4, 2009, the National Park Service and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers broke ground on a new bridge along Tamiami Trail, just north of Everglades National Park in Miami-Dade County.
Twenty years in the making, this groundbreaking represents an important step forward in restoration. A one-mile bridge will allow more water to flow south into Everglades National Park, improving conditions for native wildlife. Much work still remains – 10 more miles of road block water flow into the Park, and the National Park Service is currently developing a plan for a second phase to build additional bridging.
Sara Fain, NPCA’s former Everglades Restoration Program Manager, shares her views on the importance of bridging Tamiami Trail to achieve Everglades restoration. Restoring natural water flow is vital to Everglades National Park and to preserving South Florida’s economic and cultural heritage for the next generation.
Learn More
- Read our Tamiami Trail Fact Sheet (PDF, 206 KB)
- Read our Comments on the Next Phase of Bridging (PDF)
- Read our Recommendations for Future Actions Related to Tamiami Trail (PDF, 956 KB)
- Read our Comments on the Pilot Spreader Swales Project Environmental Assessment (PDF, 1 MB)
- Learn more about NPCA's Great Waters program.
- Learn more about NPCA's Sun Coast Regional Office.
