1640-34 Causeways Cost? S5G Million
' New Plan Offered.
.
Broward-to-Monroe
•
talecoa,L I Ba
Engineering and traffic experts unrolled a new cause-
way plan —a 56-million-dollar over-the-water loop from
the Broward to Monroe County lines —,for Metro Corn-
mission consideration Tuesday. i
Called the "Biscayne Bay Malecon," the route would
take off from U.S. 1 above Ojus. It would skip through
ry "I G j the Graves Tract inland,
link with existing cause-
■ ¢ ways through Miami
• a Beach,then tunnel through
• to Key Biscayne.
•
Continuing.southward,
the illalecon would cross
• shoal water for 10.5 miles,
link the lower keys, and
a hook back toward Home-
stead at the Monroe Coun-
t�MIAMI ty line. X
-AREACH
IAMI' ! y.4. Commission Chairman
�'•
. <�- Walter Weiss called a spe-
w...
.' (i cial meeting for next Mon-
day to consider two
} experts' reports backing
Ill the project:
KEY .I
CAYNE; One Was from the
Ewin Engineering Corp. of
Miami, Mobile, and Wash•
I ington, D. C., showing fes-sible routes.
•■ Another wasL.. •
• -_.-_ Wilbur Siinth and AssocI.i ates, traffic consultant.
i The Smith survey showed
a. I that the Malecon,if opened
rs in 1962 with a 10-cent toll
f at each of a number of
/tH MESTEAD (' barrier stations, would be
, used by 46,000 cars daily
• � and bring in 2.34 million
it dollars annual revenue.
• OLD T h e commissioners
i RHODES ani. problem: To see if esti- •
KEY °, mated income from tolls
`2.... • would pay for construction
/ KEY R� and maintenance of the
LARGO a span.
The six-member"new"
See Broken Lines bloc on the 11-man com-
...for new projects mission indicated they op-
posed tying the project to
Port Authority revenues. Their first week in office, the
new commissioners killed a Keys causeway plan backed by
airport funds. •
The new mid-bay causeway plan is a variation, the
Smith report pointed out, of a project first advanced in
1947 by T. K. Hodges, then assistant district engineer
for the U.S. Army Corps'of Engineers. Revisions brought
up before the Miami City Commission in 1948 and 1955
died when surveys failed to show enough potential traffic
to make the project self-sustaining.
The latest version includes refinancing Rickenbacker
Causeway at a cost of about$6,250,000.
Ewin Engineering gave these construction cost esti-
mates for various sections:
Mid-Bay drive, 19.64 million dollars; Key Biscayne
to Sands Key, 11 million; Sands Key to Monroe County
line,2.63 million; Arsenicker Keys crossing, 3.44 million;
Miami Beach to Key Biscayne,13 million.
By 1976, the Smith report said,about 74,000 vehicles
would use the causeway daily,and annual revenues would
be$3,769,000.