A1A Segment 1: Key West

Key West

I thought it would be appropriate to start a blog on Florida highways with the route that is perhaps Florida's most famous. With its unique designation as the only state highway that starts with a letter, it's hard to imagine the Atlantic coast of Florida without including this highway in that thought process.

You cannot paint A1A with one brush. There are some stretches that are right on the beach, some that front seaside property and some that are a few blocks inland. There are also parts of A1A that turn inland for several miles. Also, A1A is not a continuous stretch of road. It is broken up into several segments running from Key West to Callahan, a small town north of Jacksonville.

This project will start with the newest segment of A1A, which is located entirely within the city of Key West. I drove this short segment on an overcast December afternoon.Through the entirety of this segment, A1A is known as South Roosevelt Boulevard.

Its beginning is humble, a small intersection (left). Atlantic Boulevard is the cross street, and Roosevelt starts as a continuation of Bertha Street. You could easily pass it without knowing, as there are no street signs.

The only landmark of note here is a roller hockey rink, which is the home facility of the Southernmost Hockey Club, an inline hockey organization for youth and adult play (below).


"Northbound" A1A starts heading to the southeast as a two-lane road. After about a quarter of a mile, the buildings part like a clearing sky and you are immediately treated to a panoramic view of the Straits of Florida. Don't get too taken by the sight, though, because the road also makes a 90-degree turn to the left and you can end up in the Straits of Florida.

Roosevelt then opens up to a four-lane road, with one of Key West's few beaches, George A. Smathers Beach, on the right. I had a chicken gyro and BIG shave ice at the green stand in the picture below.

After about a half mile, the beach gives way to a seawall, with the waters coming right up to the sidewalk. To the left is the entrance to Key West International Airport, which is right on the other side of the treeline (and really easy to miss). The road takes a left around the Fort East Martello Museum and heads north.

To the right, you now see Cow Key Channel, with its namesake island and a series of smaller coral islands. Not long after this, A1A crosses the Riviera Canal and enters a residential area. It continues for a short distance before coming to the end of the segment at the Intersection with US 1.

To the right is northbound US 1 and the start of the Overseas Highway. Straight ahead is southbound US 1 and Roosevelt Boulevard continues.

When I arrived at this intersection, I saw something odd (which for Key West is saying a lot). Standing on the sidewalk in a position that would put him in front of all the traffic entering the island was a man holding a two-sided sign. On one side, it said "GOD HATES AMERICA." On the other, it indicated that the Almighty also has an aversion to homosexuals, albeit in decidedly less polite language. Unfortunately, the police shooed him away before I could take a picture.

Coming up next: the second segment of A1A, which runs from Miami to Dania.

Fun facts:

• A1A was originally a set of older state highways that was combined into State Road 1 in 1945. However, it didn't take long for the state to realize that an awful lot of motorists were confusing the road with US1, which follows a similar path up the coast. About a year later, the state renamed the route A1A.
• Sen. Smathers voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964! Basically, that means he would have a problem with the beach that bears his name being open to members of every race. He was also a close friend of both John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, two politicians who were polar opposites of each other.
• Also, while Key West is known as a popular subtropical tourist destination, it does not have any natural beaches. Since there are barrier reefs off the coast, there is little surf bringing in the sand. This also accounts for the calm waves that you see there.
  

Taking the Scenic Route

Have you ever taken a different way home for the sake of variety? Or followed an unfamiliar road on a whim just to see where it leads?

As a child, I collected road maps. I would find myself entranced, following the routes, drawing my own maps on a sheet of paper, following our progress on family trips. Before I could do long division, I could tell you that the main interstate highways that end in odd numbers run north to south and those that end in even numbers run east to west.

That seems like an odd hobby, but it had an unexpected practical benefit: I rarely get lost.

This motivation hasn’t gone away, either. In fact, once I started driving, I found myself with the ability to drive the very roads that I followed on the maps. I commuted from Fort Lauderdale to Boca Raton when I was in college, and every now and then I decided to take the scenic A1A beach route home instead of the faster I-95 route. Or I would discover new “territory,” such as Loxahatchee Road, a 5-mile straightaway that leaves the suburban communities of Parkland behind, passing farms, rock quarries and a radio-controlled airplane runway before ending at the southern entrance to the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge.

What finally inspired me to start this blog, however, was something recent. Earlier this month, the girls soccer team at the school where I am athletic director crossed the state from our Cape Coral home to a game in the Miami suburb of Coconut Grove.

I take Alligator Alley (I-75) across the state frequently, as my parents live in Fort Lauderdale, so I know it like the back of my hand. This time, however, I had some time to kill, so I decided to take US 41 (Tamiami Trail) home instead.

I was immediately struck by how much different the drive was. Much of US 41 goes through the Miccosukee Indian Reservation, so you come across several tiny isolated villages. Oddly, each one has a little green sign with white lettering that says “Indian Village” right before you pass it (presumably so you don’t get it mixed up with an un-Indian village).

Then when you get to the other side of the state, you find yourself going right through the heart of Naples. Keep going and the landscape changes to the car dealerships of South Fort Myers and the pastures of Ocala, and so on.

In other words, when you take the long way, you get to see different cultures, different ways of life — even within the space of a few miles.

With this blog, I hope to provide descriptions of Florida’s highways, with as many of the unique places to stop as I can get to. There will be photos, as well, when possible.

Here’s the way it will work:

Each route will have a thread. Each thread will have a posting describing the route itself, followed by descriptions and reviews of the places to go along the way.

I will limit this to interstate, US and state highways. For the routes that are expressways, I’ll be stopping at points of interest that are close to exit ramps. For other routes, I will only stop at places that are on (or on the corner of) that highway.

Several routes overlap with others. To avoid redundancies, the thread for one route may link to the other. For example, if US 441 merges with US 41, you will be linked to the US 41 thread.

Some parameters: I’m not going to write about every gas station or big box store I come across. I’ll focus on local businesses, regional chains, and places that have entertainment value. I also plan to avoid places where huge purchases are made, for the most part, and members-only facilities, such as private golf courses. There will be exceptions, but I’ll be mostly following this.

Also, this is a huge undertaking, so it will take a while to get it going. Don’t be surprised if you see a lot of posts about Southwest Florida. I live there, so it’ll be a lot easier for me to cover the region.

I hope you enjoy this and feel free to make tasteful comments!

-Dave