There’s no construction on Southeast 3rd Avenue through downtown Fort Lauderdale, but it feels like there is.
The road has one of three bridges that run north-south through the city, and right now, it’s the detour around the closed-for-construction Henry E. Kinney tunnel on U.S. 1.
The detour itself is a traffic nightmare.
“I avoid all that by riding a bike, I do know there are backups, that’s everywhere,” said Jim Bannach, who was riding his bike down SE 3rd Avenue Wednesday.
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Andrews Avenue and Southwest 7th Avenue are other alternative bridges that go over the New River, but each bridge opens at will. That means whenever a boat too big to fit under the bridge comes by, it opens and cars come to a standstill.
There are two time periods where the bridge won’t open during rush hour, 7:30 a.m. to 9 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, except for emergencies or tugboats.
But when the bridge goes up, the backup is long.
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“I think it sucks, but it has to be done, we have to take the good with the bad. It’s not always like this but right now it is,” said one driver waiting to cross the SE 3rd Avenue bridge.
The Florida Department of Transportation is handling the tunnel construction. An FDOT spokesperson said the agency works closely with city and county partners to identify and reduce traffic tied to construction closures. However, there was no discussion about changing the bridge opening schedule to accommodate increased traffic during the tunnel closure.
“We have not got any requests from FDOT for a modification of that, if we did we would need to go through U.S. Coast Guard for approval,” said Anh Ton, the director of Highway and Bridge Maintenance for Broward County.
It took our NBC6 crew 15 minutes to go through the detour — a distance of one mile.
FDOT is asking everyone for patience. The tunnel is expected to reopen Saturday, Jan. 20, at 5 p.m.
