Rickenbacker Causeway | |
|---|---|
 Rickenbacker Causeway as seen from Downtown Miami in February 2010 | |
| Coordinates | 25°44′01″N80°09′45″W / 25.7336°N 80.1624°W /25.7336; -80.1624 |
| Carries | 6 lanes of unsigned SR 913 |
| Crosses | Biscayne Bay |
| Locale | The Roads,Miami toKey Biscayne |
| Maintained by | FDOT |
| Characteristics | |
| Total length | 5.4 miles (8.7 km) |
| Longest span | 0.6 miles (0.97 km) |
| History | |
| Opened | November 9, 1947; 78 years ago (November 9, 1947)[1] |
| Statistics | |
| Toll | $2.25 |
| Location | |
 Interactive map of Rickenbacker Causeway | |
TheRickenbacker Causeway is acauseway that connectsMiami,Florida to thebarrier islands ofVirginia Key andKey Biscayne acrossBiscayne Bay.[2]
The Causeway is atoll road, owned and operated byMiami-Dade County. Automobiles traveling southbound from Miami pay a toll of US$2.25[3] as of 2018; northbound traffic is not charged any toll. Tolls are collected via Sunpass; C-Pass transponders or cash are no longer accepted.[4]
In July 2021, MayorDaniella Levine Cava proposed a renovation of major parts of the causeway including replacement of the Bear Cut Bridge and improvements to cyclist safety, recreation, and sustainability as part of apublic private partnership.[5] The Village ofKey Biscayne, for which the causeway is the only ingress and egress to Miami, is participating in the process.[6]
Also known as (unsigned)State Road 913[7][8] west of the toll plaza, the causeway's northbound continuation is aflyover ramp with forks to northboundInterstate 95 (unsigned SR 9A) and southboundSouth Dixie Highway (US 1/unsignedSR 5); the southbound continuation is Crandon Boulevard, which extends roughly five miles through the center of Key Biscayne, terminating near theCape Florida Lighthouse inBill Baggs Cape Florida State Park.
Named afterEddie Rickenbacker, the AmericanWorld War Iflying ace and founder and president of Miami-basedEastern Air Lines, the causeway provides access theUniversity of Miami'sRosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science,MAST Academy,Virginia Key Park, andMiami Marine Stadium on Virginia Key, and toCrandon Park, the Village ofKey Biscayne, andBill Baggs Cape Florida State Park on the island of Key Biscayne. Additionally, near the eastern end of the high-rise bridge over Biyscane Bay on Virginia Key used to lie theMiami Seaquarium, which closed on October 12, 2025.
Talk of a bridge toKey Biscayne, Florida inspired by the bridges connectingMiami toMiami Beach, started in 1926. The northern two-thirds of Key Biscayne was owned byWilliam John “W.J.” Matheson, who had established acoconut plantation on the island. In February 1926 Matheson entered into an agreement with land developer D. P. Davis to develop and re-sell the northern half of Key Biscayne, including all of what is now Crandon Park and about half of the present Village of Key Biscayne. Later in 1926 the City ofCoral Gables incorporated with Key Biscayne included in its boundaries. There were dreams of a bridge to the island, making Key Biscayne the seaside resort for Coral Gables that Miami Beach had become for Miami.
In March 1926, theU.S. government auctioned off some lots on Key Biscayne that had been retained when the rest of the island was transferred to the State of Florida. The Mathesons wanted to have clear title to all of their land, and determined to outbid other interested parties for the land. They ended up paying US$58,055 for a total of 6.84 acres (2.77 ha) of land, a record price per acre for the auction of U.S. government land up to that date. Then, on September 18, 1926, the1926 Miami Hurricane crossed over Key Biscayne on its way to Miami. While there were no deaths on the island, most of the buildings on Key Biscayne were destroyed or badly damaged, and many of the plantings were lost, including half of the coconut trees. D. P. Davis was not able to meet his end of the contract; he declared bankruptcy and then disappeared en route to Europe by ship. The Florida Land Boom was over, as were plans for a bridge.
William Matheson died in 1930, leaving the island to his children. There was a flurry of interest in 1939, when theU.S. Navy approved a proposal to develop Virginia Key as anair base andsea port. There was even talk of putting an air base on the north end of Key Biscayne, as well. In 1940 William Matheson's heirs donated 808.8 acres (327.3 ha) of land, including two miles (3.2 km) of beach on theAtlantic Ocean on the northern end of Key Biscayne to Dade County to be used as a public park (Crandon Park). The county commissioner who negotiated the gift, Charles H. Crandon, had offered for the county to build a causeway to Key Biscayne in exchange for the land donation. Planning for the air and sea complex on Virginia Key was still proceeding, and construction on a causeway to Virginia Key started in 1941. TheAttack on Pearl Harbor and the entry of the United States intoWorld War II stopped all work on the causeway and the development of Virginia Key.
After the end of World War II, Crandon pushed on with the project. He got financierEd Ball to buy $6 million worth of bonds financing the construction of the causeway. Land for thetoll plaza and the causeway entrance was bought from the estate ofJames Deering. Fill dredged from the bottom of Biscayne Bay and dug from the mainland were used as both theroad bed and publicbeach areas, both to the west of Virginia Beach and on the southern reaches of the island. In November 1947 the Rickenbacker Causeway – 1.2 miles (1.9 km) of bridges and 2.7 miles (4.3 km) of roadway on fill – finally opened.[9]
In the late 1960s and 1970s the sites along the Rickenbacker Causeway continued to increase in popularity. After increasing in the mid 1960 because of the American television seriesFlipper, attendance to the Miami Seaquarium soared in 1968 when it started to display Hugo, its firstkiller whale (two years later, Lolita became their second. The two killer whales performed together until Hugo's death in 1980). Shortly afterward, Planet Ocean, a themed tourist attraction, opened its doors. Newly integrated beaches were often crowded; the causeway near thedrawbridge across the Intracoastal Waterway, and bridgeway near the mainland, became favorite fishing spots.
But popularity had a price: by 1980 it became evident that the concrete and steel structures supporting the roadway west of Virginia Key needed replacement. Five years later, the high-rise William Powell Bridge and new bridging nearest the toll plaza were built and opened at a cost of $27 million. With exception of the drawbridge (which was removed) the old bridging was left intact to serve asfishingpiers.[10] In 2011, the West Fishing Pier was demolished.[11]
Since the opening of the new bridge, theMAST Academy took over the site of the defunct Planet Ocean (the theme attraction closed in 1991); the Virginia Key site of the City of Miami's garbage dump became aSuperfund site for cleanup; the beach at Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park was gaining in popularity; but theMiami Marine Stadium has been virtually abandoned and the Miami Seaquarium has had a series of setbacks, from being devastated by hurricanesAndrew (1992) andWilma (2005) and being prevented from expanding by threats of legal action by the newly incorporated Village ofKey Biscayne; the Seaquarium eventually closed on October 12, 2025. On the other hand, the entire length of the causeway, plus Crandon Boulevard, have become part of a popularbicycling route from Key Biscayne to Florida City.[citation needed]
25°44′01″N80°09′45″W / 25.7335608°N 80.1623748°W /25.7335608; -80.1623748
Crossings of theBiscayne Bay | ||||
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