Florida State Road 924

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State Road 924

Length:

8.49^[1] mi (13.66 km)

West end:

I-75/SR 826 in Hialeah

Major
junctions:

SR 9 near Opa-locka

I-95 in North Miami

East end:

SR 909 in North Miami

Florida State and County Roads
< SR 922		ex-SR 929 >

State Road 924 is a 8.5-mile (13.5 km) east-west highway connecting Interstate 75 and the Palmetto Expressway (SR 826) in Hialeah and SR 909 (West Dixie Highway) in North Miami. The westernmost 5 miles (west of Northwest 32nd Avenue), named the Gratigny Parkway, is a limited access toll road maintained by the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority ($1.25 toll for automobiles); the easternmost three miles is a surface street (Northwest 119th Street) also known as Gratigny Road. Despite its relatively short length, SR 924 is a major east-west artery in northern Miami-Dade County.

[edit] History

Despite appearances, the Gratigny Parkway is not an outgrowth of an attempt to extend I-75 to connect with Interstate 95. Initial plans for the Gratigny were devised in the 1960's, when planners had hoped to route I-75 along the Tamiami Trail and the then-under construction "East-West Expressway" that opened (in 1969) as SR 836 and evenually became known as the Dolphin Expressway. When plans for the major north-south Interstate changed so it would be routed along Alligator Alley instead, the proposed Opa-Locka Expressway was intended to be Miami-Dade County's second full east-west throughway.^[2]

Interestingly, the Opa-Locka Expressway was never intended to terminate at I-95, but merge with a surface street within a few blocks of it instead. Funding issues caused the Florida Department of Transportation to mothball its construction plans for over a decade, but when the plan was revived, the changing demographics of the neighborhoods impacted by construction (an area with a predominantly white population in the 1960's became an area with a predominantly African-American and Hispanic population in the 1980's). In 1982, racial politics killed the portion of the Opa-Locka Expressway that was planned for east of SR 9, and the proposed new expressway received a new name: the Gratigny Parkway.

Faced with rising construction costs in 1982, FDOT officials told the North Dade Chamber of Commerce that the Gratigny Parkway would be built as a toll road; and in the following year, the construction project was given a green light.

Then the real battle began. In 1984, increased opposition almost derailed construction of the expressway again, but this time the resistance came from residents of Miami Lakes and Hialeah. Both communities didn't want any expressways to be built, even to the point of Hialeah amending its city charter to oppose all expressway construction within its city limits. Yet at that point, FDOT had already purchased 90% of the land needed for construction of the Gratigny Parkway - and it was determined to get it built. After a compromise that deleted one interchange with a major surface street (Ludlam Road/Northwest 67th Avenue), construction finally began in 1987.

The Gratigny Parkway opened to traffic in January 1992. At the time, no signs indicated the name of the toll road: they merely showed the SR 924 designation that it shared with Gratigny Road to the east. In 1997, the newly-established Miami-Dade Expressway Authority took over the operation from FDOT. New TOLL shields (with the MDX logo underneath them) made their appearance along the expressway but not the surface road to the east of SR 9; the corner of Northwest 119th Street at SR 9 has a MDX "end 924" sign for the eastbound drivers, yet on the other side of SR 9 a FDOT "east SR 924" sign greets people who wish to continue eastward on the surface street.