Seven Mile Bridge
Encyclopedia
The Seven Mile Bridge is a famous bridge
Bridge
A bridge is a structure built to span physical obstacles such as a body of water, valley, or road, for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle...

 in the Florida Keys
Florida Keys
The Florida Keys are a coral archipelago in southeast United States. They begin at the southeastern tip of the Florida peninsula, about south of Miami, and extend in a gentle arc south-southwest and then westward to Key West, the westernmost of the inhabited islands, and on to the uninhabited Dry...

, in Monroe County
Monroe County, Florida
Monroe County is a county located in the state of Florida. As of 2000, the population was 79,589. The U.S. Census Bureau 2006 estimate for the county was 74,737....

, Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. It connects Knight's Key
Knight's Key
Knight's Key is an island in the middle Florida Keys, located entirely within the borders of the city of Marathon, Florida.-Geography:U.S. 1 crosses the key at approximately mile marker 47, at the western end of Key Vaca and eastern end of the Seven Mile Bridge.-History:Prior to the completion of...

 (part of the city of Marathon, Florida
Marathon, Florida
Marathon is a city on Knight's Key, Boot Key, Key Vaca, Fat Deer Key, Long Point Key, Crawl Key and Grassy Key islands in the middle Florida Keys, in Monroe County, Florida, in the United States. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 10,255. As of 2005, the population estimated...

) in the Middle Keys to Little Duck Key
Little Duck Key
Little Duck Key is a small island in the lower Florida Keys.U.S. 1 crosses the key at approximately mile marker 40, just west of the Seven Mile Bridge...

 in the Lower Keys. Among the longest bridges in existence when it was built, it is one of the many bridges on US 1
U.S. Route 1 in Florida
U.S. Route 1 in Florida runs along the state's east coast from Key West to its crossing of the St. Marys River into Georgia north of Boulogne, and south of Folkston. US 1 was designated through Florida when the U.S. Highway System was established in 1926.US 1 runs in the state of Florida, and...

 in the Keys, where the road is called the Overseas Highway
Overseas Highway
The Overseas Highway is a highway carrying U.S. Route 1 through the Florida Keys. Large parts of it were built on the former right-of-way of the Overseas Railroad, the Key West Extension of the Florida East Coast Railway. Completed in 1912, the Overseas Railroad was heavily damaged and partially...

.

There are two bridges in this location. The older bridge, originally known as the Knights Key-Pigeon Key-Moser Channel-Pacet Channel Bridge, was constructed from 1909-1912 under the direction of Henry Flagler as part of the Florida East Coast Railway
Florida East Coast Railway
The Florida East Coast Railway is a Class II railroad operating in the U.S. state of Florida; in the past, it has been a Class I railroad.Built primarily in the last quarter of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century, the FEC was a project of Standard Oil principal Henry Morrison...

's Key West Extension, also known as the Overseas Railroad
Overseas Railroad
The Overseas Railroad was an extension of the Florida East Coast Railway to Key West, a city of almost 30,000 inhabitants located 128 miles beyond the end of the Florida peninsula...

.

History

This bridge was badly damaged by the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935
Labor Day Hurricane of 1935
The 1935 Labor Day Hurricane was the strongest tropical cyclone of the 1935 Atlantic hurricane season, and one of the most intense hurricanes to make landfall in the United States in recorded history...

, and subsequently refurbished by the United States Federal Government
Federal government of the United States
The federal government of the United States is the national government of the constitutional republic of fifty states that is the United States of America. The federal government comprises three distinct branches of government: a legislative, an executive and a judiciary. These branches and...

 as an automobile
Automobile
An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...

 highway
Highway
A highway is any public road. In American English, the term is common and almost always designates major roads. In British English, the term designates any road open to the public. Any interconnected set of highways can be variously referred to as a "highway system", a "highway network", or a...

 bridge. It had a swing span that opened to allow passage of boat traffic, near where the bridge crosses Pigeon Key
Pigeon Key
Pigeon Key is a historic district located on the small island of Pigeon Key in the lower Florida Keys. The island is named "Cayo Paloma" on many old Spanish charts...

, a small island where a work camp for Flagler's railroad was located. Hurricane Donna
Hurricane Donna
Hurricane Donna in the 1960 Atlantic hurricane season was a Cape Verde-type hurricane which moved across the Leeward Islands, Puerto Rico, Hispanola, Cuba, The Bahamas, and every state on the East Coast of the United States...

 in 1960 caused further damage.

The current road bridge was constructed from 1978 to 1982. The vast majority of the original bridge still exists, used as fishing piers and access to Pigeon Key, but the swing span
Swing bridge
A swing 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 centre of gravity, about which the turning span can then pivot horizontally as shown in the animated illustration to the right...

 over the Moser Channel
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 with the Atlantic waters of Hawk Channel and the Florida Reef to the south and east...

 of the Intracoastal Waterway
Intracoastal Waterway
The Intracoastal Waterway is a 3,000-mile waterway along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the United States. Some lengths consist of natural inlets, salt-water rivers, bays, and sounds; others are artificial canals...

 has been removed.

Engineering

The new bridge is a box-girder structure built from precast, prestressed concrete
Concrete
Concrete is a composite construction material, composed of cement and other cementitious materials such as fly ash and slag cement, aggregate , water and chemical admixtures.The word concrete comes from the Latin word...

 sections, comprising 440 spans. Near the center, the bridge rises in an arc to provide 65 feet (19.8 m)-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
Pigeon Key
Pigeon Key is a historic district located on the small island of Pigeon Key in the lower Florida Keys. The island is named "Cayo Paloma" on many old Spanish charts...

.

The total length of the new bridge is actually 35862 ft (10,930.7 m) or 6.79 miles (10.9 km), and is shorter than the original.
Each April the bridge is closed for approximately 2.5 hours on a Saturday and a "fun run
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 Keys bridge rebuilding program...

," known as the Seven Mile Bridge Run, of 1,500 runners is held commemorating the Florida Keys
Florida Keys
The Florida Keys are a coral archipelago in southeast United States. They begin at the southeastern tip of the Florida peninsula, about south of Miami, and extend in a gentle arc south-southwest and then westward to Key West, the westernmost of the inhabited islands, and on to the uninhabited Dry...

 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 Henry Flagler constructed in the early 1900s to serve as a foundation for his Overseas Railroad
Overseas Railroad
The Overseas Railroad was an extension of the Florida East Coast Railway to Key West, a city of almost 30,000 inhabitants located 128 miles beyond the end of the Florida peninsula...

.

The Seven Mile Bridge was engineered by Figg & Muller Engineers. 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 film and television

The spectacular bridge has attracted many filmmakers. Its film 'credits' include scenes in True Lies
True Lies
True Lies is a 1994 American action-comedy film directed by James Cameron and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Arnold, Bill Paxton, Tia Carrere, Charlton Heston, and Art Malik. Eliza Dushku also appears in the film in one of her first major film roles...

, 2 Fast 2 Furious
2 Fast 2 Furious
2 Fast 2 Furious is a 2003 street racing action film directed by John Singleton. It is the second film in The Fast and the Furious film series following The Fast and the Furious . It stars Paul Walker, Tyrese Gibson, Eva Mendes, Devon Aoki, and Chris Bridges; and was directed by John Singleton. The...

, the James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...

 film Licence to Kill
Licence to Kill
Licence to Kill, released in 1989, is the sixteenth entry in the Eon Productions James Bond series and the first one not to use the title of an Ian Fleming novel. It marks Timothy Dalton's second and final performance in his brief tenure in the lead role of James Bond...

, CrissCross
CrissCross
CrissCross is a 1992 feature film directed by Chris Menges, based on the novel by Scott Sommer. It stars Goldie Hawn, Arliss Howard, Keith Carradine, Steve Buscemi, and David Arnott.- Plot :...

, and Up Close & Personal
Up Close & Personal
Up Close & Personal is an American romantic drama film directed by Jon Avnet, and starring Robert Redford as a news director and Michelle Pfeiffer as his protegée, with Stockard Channing, Joe Mantegna and Kate Nelligan in supporting roles....

.

In True Lies
True Lies
True Lies is a 1994 American action-comedy film directed by James Cameron and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Arnold, Bill Paxton, Tia Carrere, Charlton Heston, and Art Malik. Eliza Dushku also appears in the film in one of her first major film roles...

, filmed in the early 1990s, a section of the old bridge is shown being destroyed by missile
Missile
Though a missile may be any thrown or launched object, it colloquially almost always refers to a self-propelled guided weapon system.-Etymology:The word missile comes from the Latin verb mittere, meaning "to send"...

 strikes. The missiles were edited in, and the explosions were done on an 80-foot (24 m) model of the bridge, but filming was done on the actual bridge, and the "destroyed" section is the former swing span, which had been removed upon completion of the new bridge.

The bridge also appears in a Life After People: The Series episode, collapsing in several spans 100 years after the disappearance of people.

The finale of season 18 (2011) of the The Amazing Race
The Amazing Race
The Amazing Race is a reality television game show in which teams of two people, who have some form of a preexisting personal relationship, race around the world in competition with other teams...

reality TV series was a tricycle race across the old bridge.

On the Top Gear
Top Gear (U.S. TV series)
Top Gear is a motoring television series, based on the BBC series of the same name. The show's presenters are professional racing driver Tanner Foust, actor and comedian Adam Ferrara, and automotive and racing analyst Rutledge Wood. As with the original British version, the show has its own version...

 TV series, the presenters conducted a race in the Florida keys between a performance car, a speed boat, and a sea plane. The car raced across the Seven Mile Bridge.

In gaming

In the remake of the videogame Spy Hunter
Spy Hunter
Spy Hunter is a 1983 arcade game developed and released by Bally Midway. It has also been ported to various home computers and video game systems....

, the bridge features prominently in level 12, and is destroyed.

In music

David Allan Coe
David Allan Coe
David Allan Coe is an American outlaw country music singer who achieved popularity in the 1970s and 1980s. He has written and performed over 280 original songs throughout his career...

sings about the bridge in his song titled "Seven Mile Bridge".
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