The Dolphin East-West Expressway is a , six-lane, divided

controlled-access highway A controlled-access highway is a type of highway that has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow—ingress and egress—regulated. Common English terms are freeway, motorway and expressway. Other similar terms i ...

, with the westernmost as an all-electronic

tollway A toll road, also known as a turnpike or tollway, is a public or private road (almost always a controlled-access highway in the present day) for which a fee (or '' toll'') is assessed for passage. It is a form of road pricing typically implemente ...

signed as State Road 836 (SR 836), and the easternmost between

Interstate 95 Interstate 95 (I-95) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the East Coast of the United States, running from US Route 1 (US 1) in Miami, Florida, to the Houlton–Woodstock Border Crossing between Maine and the Canadia ...

(I-95) and SR A1A cosigned as Interstate 395 (I-395). The road currently extends from just north of the intersection of Southwest 137th Avenue and U.S. Highway 41 (US 41) in Tamiami, eastward past the

Homestead Extension of Florida's Turnpike The Homestead Extension of Florida's Turnpike (HEFT), designated as unsigned State Road 821 (SR 821), is the southern extension of Florida's Turnpike, a toll road in the U.S. state of Florida maintained by Florida's Turnpike Enterprise ( ...

(SR 821) and

Miami International Airport Miami International Airport , also known as MIA and historically as Wilcox Field, is the primary airport serving the greater Miami metropolitan area with over 1,000 daily flights to 167 domestic and international destinations, including most c ...

, before intersecting I-95, becoming I-395 and ending at SR A1A in Miami at the west end of the MacArthur Causeway. The Dolphin Expressway is maintained and operated by the

Miami-Dade Expressway Authority The Miami-Dade Expressway Authority (MDX) is an independent agency created in December 1994 by the State of Florida and the Miami-Dade County Commission. Since 1997 MDX has operated and maintained five expressways formerly operated by the Florida D ...

(MDX), while the I-395 section is maintained by the

Florida Department of Transportation The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) is a decentralized agency charged with the establishment, maintenance, and regulation of public transportation in the state of Florida. The department was formed in 1969. It absorbed the powers of t ...

(FDOT). The Dolphin Expressway from the Palmetto Expressway to I-95 opened in 1969, with the I-395 section opening in 1971, the extension to the HEFT opening in 1974 and a second western extension opening in 2007.

Route description

The highway begins just north of the intersection of Southwest 137th Avenue (unsigned SR 825) and U.S. Highway 41 ( SR 90) in Tamiami, built in 2007 and initially accessible only to motorists with

SunPass SunPass is an electronic toll collection system within the state of Florida, United States. It was created in 1999 by the Florida Department of Transportation's (FDOT's) Office of Toll Operations, operating now as a division of Florida's Turnp ...

transponders, passing through the first toll gantry. The expressway heads east towards the Homestead Extension of the Turnpike, and then passes through the second of four toll gantries. It then intersects with the Palmetto Expressway ( SR 826) at the recently rebuilt Dolphin–Palmetto Interchange, and passes through the southern end of the

. With the failure of

FDOT The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) is a decentralized agency charged with the establishment, maintenance, and regulation of public transportation in the state of Florida. The department was formed in 1969. It absorbed the powers of t ...

to build either the previously planned airport spur or the proposed LeJeune Road Expressway to give additional access to the airport,

Miami-Dade County Miami-Dade County is a county located in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Florida. The county had a population of 2,701,767 as of the 2020 census, making it the most populous county in Florida and the seventh-most populous county in ...

's sole complete east–west throughway is now often congested, most commonly in the stretch between the Palmetto Expressway ( SR 826) and LeJeune Road ( SR 953). During this stretch, the expressway have interchanges with NW 72nd Avenue, a third toll gantry, NW 57th Avenue, and a partial with NW 45th Avenue before reaching LeJeune Road. East of the interchange with the airport at LeJeune Road, The expressway has interchanges with NW 37th Avenue and NW 27th Avenue ( SR 9), and then reaches the fourth and final toll gantry just west of downtown. The highway has two more interchanges in the fringes of downtown with NW 17th Avenue and NW 12th Avenue before intersecting with

I-95 Interstate 95 (I-95) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the East Coast of the United States, running from US Route 1 (US 1) in Miami, Florida, to the Houlton–Woodstock Border Crossing between Maine and the Canadia ...

at the Midtown Interchange and becoming a free road and unsigned as Interstate 395 goes into downtown Miami. I-395 heads east as an elevated, six-lane expressway into downtown Miami. The feeder lanes from I-95 to eastbound I-395 make up a separate three lane ramp to the right of I-395, with the exit to US 1/

US 41 U.S. Route 41, also U.S. Highway 41 (US 41), is a major north–south United States Numbered Highway that runs from Miami, Florida, to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Until 1949, the part in southern Florida, from Naples to Miami, ...

being a left exit from the I-395 lanes and a right exit from the I-95 feeder lanes. The feeder lanes then merge into three lanes, heading east towards the MacArthur Causeway, with I-395 and SR 836 terminating just east of an entrance ramp with US 1 ( SR 5)/

, and continuing as SR A1A.

Tolls

The Dolphin Expressway is an all-electronic toll road that only accepts tolls via

transponders or billing by the toll-by-plate at double cost. The toll road does not accept cash. Toll gantries are located along the expressway and on interchange ramps, eliminating all "free movement" sections that existed in the past. As of November 15, 2014, the total toll for traffic traveling along the expressway from Northwest 137th Avenue to

is $2.40 for SunPass users, and $4.80 for Toll-by-Plate users.

History

Originally envisioned as the Twentieth Street Tollway in 1964 (with a spur to the airport along LeJeune Road), construction on the Fourteenth Street east–west Expressway between the

Palmetto Expressway Palmetto (meaning "little palm") may refer to: Palms Several small palms in the Arecaceae (palm tree) family: *in the genus ''Sabal'': **Bermuda palmetto, '' Sabal bermudana'' **Birmingham palmetto, ''Sabal'' 'Birmingham' **Dwarf, or bush palm ...

and US 1 started in 1967 and was completed in 1969. Two years later, construction of the western extension to

Florida's Turnpike Florida's Turnpike, designated as unsigned State Road 91 (SR 91), is a toll road in the U.S. state of Florida, maintained by Florida's Turnpike Enterprise (FTE). Spanning approximately along a northwest–southeast axis, the turnpike is in tw ...

commenced, and was finished in 1974. Also in 1974, the name of the tollway was changed to commemorate the success of the

Miami Dolphins The Miami Dolphins are a professional American football team based in the Miami metropolitan area. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member team of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division. The team p ...

of the NFL, after

back The human back, also called the dorsum, is the large posterior area of the human body, rising from the top of the buttocks to the back of the neck. It is the surface of the body opposite from the chest and the abdomen. The vertebral column runs ...

-to-

wins in the

Super Bowl The Super Bowl is the annual final playoff game of the National Football League (NFL) to determine the league champion. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966, replacing the NFL Championship Game. Since 2022, the gam ...

. The section of SR 836 signed as I-395 was supposed to open with the rest of the Dolphin Expressway in 1968, but was delayed due to a freeze at the federal level for road spending. The expressway opened on March 26, 1971. Initial plans for the

Interstate 75 Interstate 75 (I-75) is a major north–south Interstate Highway in the Great Lakes and Southeastern regions of the United States. As with most Interstates that end in 5, it is a major cross-country, north–south route, traveling from St ...

extension to Miami in 1968 would have had used the Dolphin Expressway as its final link to Interstate 95 (I-75 would have crossed the Everglades via the

Tamiami Trail The Tamiami Trail () is the southernmost of U.S. Highway 41 (US 41) from State Road 60 (SR 60) in Tampa to US 1 in Miami. A portion of the road also has the hidden designation of State Road 90 (SR 90). The north� ...

under this plan). However, these plans were abandoned in 1973 in favor of I-75's current route farther north. The fact that the Dolphin Expressway was not built to interstate standards was one of the factors in changing I-75's proposed route. Construction of a second westward extension of SR 836 started in 2004. This extension, westward to Northwest 137th Avenue near Northwest 12th Street, opened June 22, 2007, was initially accessible only to motorists with

electronic toll-paying capability; there is no capacity for the collection of cash. The road has since opened to non SunPass users with the Toll by Plate system. Until July 1, 2007, the toll for eastbound automobiles was $1.25 ($1.00 for motorists with

), paid at a toll booth between Northwest 22nd and Northwest 17th Avenues (toll is not collected from westbound traffic). In conjunction with the completion of the new three-mile-long extension west of the Turnpike, tolls of $1.00 (75 cents for motorists with

) were collected from traffic in both directions west of SR 973 (Northwest 87th Avenue/Galloway Road). Although the new toll was originally stated to be only for the extension, motorists going to the Florida Turnpike or Northwest 107th Avenue also have to pay. On July 21, 2013, the eastbound toll plaza near I-95 ceased cash collection and became all electronic, with those paying with SunPass paying $1, and Toll by Plate users paying $2. On November 15, 2014, the Dolphin Expressway became an all electronic toll road, no longer collecting cash, and the only ways to pay are either by the

transponders or billing by the toll-by-plate program, at double the cost of SunPass users. Toll gantries are located along the expressway and on interchanges to where there are no "free movement" sections of the expressway as existed previously. The move was first announced in 2010, and along with the nearby Airport Expressway, was the last of the MDX expressways to be converted to

open road tolling Open road tolling (ORT), also called all-electronic tolling, cashless tolling, or free-flow tolling, is the collection of tolls on toll roads without the use of toll booths. An electronic toll collection system is usually used instead. The ma ...

. On May 24, 2010, construction began on the Port Miami Tunnel, a $1 billion project that connects the port to other major highway arteries, including I-395, with the tunnel opening on August 3, 2014.

Future

Short range plans include the construction of additional lanes to match the rebuilt, higher capacity Dolphin-Palmetto Interchange, with SR 826. A planned third extension (southward to Southwest 136th Street) is currently being considered, though may have been replaced with the widening of the rural surface road Krome Avenue to four lanes. In 2021 the controversial extension, known as the Kendall Parkway, was still under consideration. The Dolphin Expressway is home to two of the state's three diverging-diamond interchanges after the reconstruction of two exits at Northwest 27th Avenue and Northwest 57th Avenue. Long-term plans in the 2020s call for a double-decker span of SR 836 (from NW 17 Avenue, rising over the center of the existing SR 836 roadway, and touching down at I-395, east of the I-95 interchange), and a complete replacement of the I-395 sector (from I-95 to the MacArthur Causeway), with a new "signature"

cable-stayed bridge A cable-stayed bridge has one or more ''towers'' (or ''pylons''), from which cables support the bridge deck. A distinctive feature are the cables or stays, which run directly from the tower to the deck, normally forming a fan-like pattern ...

extending across it and over

Biscayne Boulevard U.S. Highway 1 (US 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. Number ...

. Community parks, art installations, and

urban green space In land-use planning, urban green space is open-space areas reserved for parks and other "green spaces", including plant life, water features -also referred to as blue spaces- and other kinds of natural environment. Most urban open spaces ar ...

s will be designed underneath the 1.4 mile stretch. The $802 million project is known as "Connecting Miami" and will be coordinated between the

(FDOT) and the

(MDX). Construction began in January 2019, with completion estimated for late 2023.

Exit list

Exits are unnumbered on the MDX-maintained section.

References

External links

FDOT
GIS data
Florida @ SouthEastRoads - Interstate 395 and Florida 836

Connecting Miami Project
{{3di, 95 836 836 836 836 Freeways in the United States 1969 establishments in Florida Expressways in Miami Expressways in Miami-Dade County, Florida