State Road 953 (SR 953), locally known as Le Jeune Road (pronounced "Luh-JOO-n"), is a long north–south street in

Miami-Dade County, Florida Miami-Dade County () is a County (United States), 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 United States census, 2020 census, making it the most populous coun ...

running a few miles west of central

Miami Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...

from U.S. Route 1 in

Coral Gables Coral Gables is a city in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. The city is part of the Miami metropolitan area of South Florida and is located southwest of Downtown Miami. As of the 2020 U.S. census, it had a population of 49,248. Cora ...

to State Road 916 in Opa-locka. It is also known as West 42nd Avenue on the

greater Miami The Miami metropolitan area is a coastal metropolitan area in southeastern Florida. It is the sixth-largest metropolitan statistical area (MSA) in the United States, the fifth-largest metropolitan area in the Southern United States, and the lar ...

grid plan In urban planning, the grid plan, grid street plan, or gridiron plan is a type of city plan in which streets run at right angles to each other, forming a grid. Two inherent characteristics of the grid plan, frequent intersections and orthogon ...

and East 8th Avenue in the

Hialeah Hialeah ( ; ) is a city in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. With a population of 223,109 as of the 2020 census, it is the sixth-largest city in Florida. It is the second largest city by population in Miami-Dade County in the Miami met ...

grid plan.

Route description

Le Jeune Road proper begins at a traffic circle with Sunset Drive and Old Cutler Road in the city of

, but the state designation actually begins north at an intersection with U.S. Route 1 (

Dixie Highway Dixie Highway was a United States auto trail first planned in 1914 to connect the Midwest with the South. It was part of a system and was expanded from an earlier Miami to Montreal highway. The final system is better understood as a network o ...

. SR 953 heads north from US 1 as a four-lane road through residential areas, the eastern end of Coral Gables Senior High School, and the western end of the Village of Merrick Park mall. SR 953 intersects Bird Road and leaves the campus of Coral Gables High School, entering a pure residential area and remains that way until reaching University Drive. At that point, the east side of the road becomes commercial and the west side is residential until close to the intersection with

Coral Way Coral Way is a neighborhood within Miami, Florida that is defined by Coral Way (street), Coral Way, a road established by Coral Gables, Florida, Coral Gables founder George E. Merrick during the Florida land boom of the 1920s, 1920s. It is loca ...

( State Road 972). A few blocks north of Coral Way, it resumes with residential housing on the west side of the road and commercial buildings to the east, still in Coral Gables. At Zamora Avenue, Le Jeune Road divides Coral Gables to the west with unincorporated Miami-Dade County to the east, and enters unincorporated Miami-Dade County just one block north at Mendoza Avenue, becoming purely a residential street again. At Southwest 8th Street (

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

/ Tamiami Trail), Le Jeune Road enters the city of Miami, and becomes a divided road, with two lanes in each direction. Le Jeune continues north through Miami, remaining a residential street for six blocks before becoming a commercial road. It continues north through Miami as a commercial street until an interchange with the Dolphin Expressway (SR 836), where the road becomes a divider between the International Links Miami-Melreese golf course to the east and a parking lot to the west. It reenters unincorporated Miami-Dade County after crossing the Tamiami Canal just south of the entrance to

Miami International Airport Miami International Airport , also known as MIA and historically as Wilcox Field, is the primary international airport serving Miami and its Miami metropolitan area, surrounding metropolitan area, in the U.S. state of Florida. It hosts over 1, ...

and its interchange with the southern terminus of the Airport Expressway (SR 112). Between SR 953's entrance of the airport and the next major interchange north, State Road 948, it creates the eastern boundary of the airport, with airport related business to the east of LeJeune Road. Just two blocks north of SR 948, SR 953 crosses canal C-6 and crosses US 27 ( Okeechobee Road), entering

as their Southeast 8th Avenue and no longer a divided road. It continues north as a residential street, crossing State Road 944, becoming East 8th Avenue, the easternmost major street in Hialeah, with some commercial business at East 9th Street, State Road 934, East 41st Street and State Road 932. North of East 57th Street, it passes by a truck distribution center to the east, and a park to the west. SR 953 then splits off to the Le Jeune/

Douglas Road The Douglas Road, a.k.a. the Lillooet Trail, Harrison Trail or Lakes Route, was a goldrush-era transportation route from the British Columbia Coast to the Interior Plateau, Interior (NB another route known as the Lillooet Trail was the Lillooet Cat ...

Expressway Connection, providing nearby access to State Road 924, followed by an intersection with East 65th Street at the south end of

Amelia Earhart Park Amelia Earhart Park is a urban park in unincorporated Miami-Dade County, just north of Hialeah, Florida, Hialeah, Florida. It offers a number of recreational attractions like bike trails, skateboarding, and fishing. History This Miami-Dade Co ...

, leaving Hialeah and entering Opa-locka where it is again West 42nd Avenue. North of SR 924, Le Jeune Road is a purely commercial road, servicing truck distribution centers as SR 953 heads towards its northern terminus of State Road 916 (North 135th Street). North of SR 916, Le Jeune Road continues for , towards a dead-end inside Opa-locka Airport. North of the airport, Northwest 42nd Avenue continues north to a dead end beyond North 204th Street.

History

According to Joaquin Roy, a highly regarded professor from the University of Miami in his 1989 book "The Streets of Coral Gables"; Le Jeune Road was named after Charles Le Jeune (b. 1878,

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...

) who came to Florida around 1900 and acquired of coral rock land on which he used dynamite to create tillable soil, and then cultivated orange, grapefruit and lime groves. The road that was the boundary of his property became known as Le Jeune Road. In 1914, Charles Le Jeune sold his groves to (George) Merrick, developer of Coral Gables, Florida, for $1,700,000. It runs adjacent to the east side and crosses the original entrance/exit to

. At one point during the 1960s, the entire route was to be upgraded to freeway status, but the plans were cancelled. Several attempts to upgrade LeJeune Road around Miami International Airport have been proposed, with all of them failing. Prior to 1983, Le Jeune Road was signed as State Road 913 south of North 103rd Street ( SR 932); a designation now being applied to the Rickenbacker Causeway approach.

Major intersections

References

External links

SR 953 @ AARoads.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lejeune Road Roads in Miami Roads in Miami-Dade County, Florida Opa-locka, Florida Coral Gables, Florida Transportation in Hialeah, Florida 1983 establishments in Florida