Florida's Turnpike is celebrating a 50th anniversary today (2007-01-25). On Jan 23 1957 they had a grand opening of what was then called the Sunshine State Parkway, now just Florida's Turnpike Mainline.

Major agitator for its construction was Charlie Costar, a Florida accountant and businessman who'd traveled on the Pennsylvania Turnpike and in the early 1950s embarked on a personal crusade to get a turnpike built in Florida. He gained the support of key politicians, and the Florida State Turnpike Authority was formed in 1953 to build Florida's Turnpike. $74m of toll revenue bonds were sold for construction of the first section. Major resistance came from roadside businesses on US1. There had also been major fights over the routing. Hamilton Forman, and other big landowners got the alignment moved from today's I-95 near the coast inland.

Costar didn't live to see his dream fully realized, dying in early 1956 at the height of construction.

In 1957 they opened this major stretch hugging the Atlantic coast, 108 miles (sometimes put at 110 miles) (174km or 177km) between Fort Pierce (MP152) and Golden Glades interchange in north Miami (MP44 originally). It was Florida's first expressway of any length - I-95, I-75 and I-4 were just planning lines on maps.

Transformed the potential of southeast Florida

The opening of the turnpike made movement up and down the coast a pleasant 70 or 80 minute cruise compared to a four or five hour ordeal on US-1. By improving accessibility it accelerated a long boom in construction based first on retirement and vacationing but later diversified across a broad range of activities. Cheaper land was opened for housing and business by the shorter travel times.

Fearful reporters

At the time of the opening 50 years ago newspapers adopted a paternalistic tone to motorists, who they thought needed to be instructed in how to merge and and exit at interchanges, among other things. (see http://www.floridasturnpike.com/50th/newsclippings.html)

The Miami Sunday News Jan 20 1957 under a headline "New Concept in Motoring" had a list of "Do's and Don'ts" and earnest subheads "Stopping is Almost Taboo," "No Route for Amateurs" and "Ambulances Stand at the Ready."

Although we now know expressways are far safer than regular surface roads, writers at the time foresaw horrendous crashes. Said a Miami Sunday News piece by one Jack W Roberts: "Let one dumbell following too close loose in the pack and a chain collision results."

Turnpike personnel at entrance toll plazas were, Roberts wrote, under instructions to turn back any "old jalopy" unfit for highspeed travel, drunks, and "kids" intending to use the pike as a raceway.

Sit left - police

Head of the Turnpike police unit Captain Red Taylor provided this lurid description of collisions on northern pikes: "I found case after case where the right side of cars were sheared off killing a wife and her driver but leaving the driver virtually untouched."

We wonder if in the early years passengers on Florida's Turnpike, waiting for the right side of their car to be sheared off sat firmly in the left rear seat?

No detoll expected

Interesting is an item on opening day under the headline "Chance Slim for Pike as Freeway" saying the "bobtail turnpike" (the bobtail adjective has us mystified - enlighten us someone please) was unlikely to ever be a free. Tolls would be maintained once construction bonds were paid off in order to support improvements and extensions, it says.

On hand for the opening ceremony was the state Governor Leroy Collins, a beauty queen of the "Sandy Shoes Festival", the widow of the former Governor Dan McCarty who had initiated the project, a band of Seminole Indians, bands, and many other politicians and other bigwigs.

The 108 miles (they also called it 110 miles) with 88 bridges was built in 16 months at a cost of $63m. The Turnpike was built with a 20ft (6.1m) grass median in the center and no barrier. It competed with US-One with 98 traffic signals ("stop lights" they were called).

Traffic forecasts for 1957 were for about 10k vehicles/day on the southern portion and 5k on the northern portion, and toll revenues of $5.25m in the first year. When it opened this stretch had only 9 interchanges.

The Turnpike Mainline was constructed by the Florida State Turnpike Authority formed in 1953 and disbanded in July 1969 when the Authority's toll properties were handed over to the Florida Department of Transportation, which ran an Office of Florida's Turnpike and an Office of Toll Operations. In 2002 FDOT merged these two offices into Florida Turnpike Enterprise which presently runs the Turnpike System of 740km (460mi), 201km (125mi) of other tollroads and operates some 34km (21mi) for several other regional toll authorities - a total of 975km (606mi). By this measure it is equal second in the US to the New York State Thruway (641mi) with the Oklahoma Turnpike (606mi) and trailed by the Pennsylvania Turnpike (531mi). By ownership mileage it is fourth after NYSTA, OK, PA.

Name changes

Officially Florida's Turnpike Sunshine State Parkway and designated State Route 91 (FL91Toll) the numerical designation has almost disappeared from use and the tollroad has become known simply as Florida's Turnpike with Turnpike officials adding Mainline to distinguish it from other Turnpike tollroads. By 1964 the Turnpike Mainline had been extended 159 miles more (253km) northwest and inland through the Orlando area to its present northern terminus at Wildwood (MP309) where it meets I-75 that provides the main route off the peninsula to Atlanta GA and mainland USA.

With federal grants flowing for free roads, plans were abandoned to build the Turnpike from Orlando to Jacksonville and to Tampa.

In 1974 another 47 miles (76km) called the Homestead Extension of Floridas Turnpike (HEFT) designated FL869Toll was opened at the southern end, looping around the western fringe of the greater Miami area ending at Florida City - entry point to both the Everglades National Park and Key Largo and the Florida Keys.

The HEFT with portions 2x4 travel lanes has the highest volumes of any tollroad in Florida with up to 180k veh/day.

Competition with I-95

Nowadays traffic moving along the coast of southeast Florida has the choice of the Turnpike or the I-95 freeway which generally runs 3 to 7 miles (5km to 12km) to the east, although for one portion around Pt St Lucie the two expressways flip and the Turnpike is the closer to the coast.

Map see http://www.floridasturnpike.com/maps/UpdatedMaps2007/mainline.pdf

The free expressway now known as I-95 was built in bits and pieces between 1959 and 1987, but the turnpike carried the I-95 shield until 1977.

Ely, Christ small boys

Florida's governor Charlie Crist and the Turnpike Enterprise's Jim Ely, both toddlers when the first stretch of the Sunshine State Parkway opened - their dads took them for a spin on the Turnpike as little boys when it was the only superhighway in Florida - are speaking today at the 50th anniversary ceremonies at the Pompano Beach service plaza (MP65).

see http://www.floridasturnpike.com/50th/index.html

Motorists are getting SunPass transponders for half off today: $12.50 vs yesterday and tomorrow's $25.

BACKGROUND

Florida's Turnpike Mainline is now divided into four parts:

- Northern Coin: 108km (67mi) car toll with transponder 4.5c/mi, 154k/day,$81m revenue in 2005

- Ticket system: 249km (155mi) 5.1c/mi, 122k/day, $135m

- Southern Coin section: 69km (43mi) 4.7c/mi, 367k/day, $104m

- HEFT: 76km (47mi) 5.9c/mi, 452k/day, $103m

Total revenues on the Mainline were $423m in 2005 based on transactions of 1.16m/day of which 452k were on the HEFT and 644k/day on the northern and southern coin sections plus the ticket section.

Seven other tollroads also form part of what is called Florida's Turnpike System:

- Beachline formerly Bee Line West, Orlando: 13km (8mi), 6.3c/mi, 65k/day, $15m revenue 2005 (sometimes lumped in with the Turnpike Mainline)

- Sawgrass Exwy, Miami 37km (23mi), 6.5c/mi, 108k/day, $47m

- Seminole Exwy, Orlando 29km (18mi), 8.3c/mi, 88k/day, $31m

- Veterans Exwy, Tampa 24km (15mi) 8.3c/mi, 63k/day, $30m

- Southern Connector, Orlando 10km (6mi) 8.3c/mi, 11k/day, $4m

- Polk Parkway midway Tampa & Orlando 40km (24mi) 12c/mi, 62k/day, $19m

- Suncoast Parkway Tampa 68km (42mi) 7.1c/mi, 58k/day, $17m

Transactions run about 1.7m/day over the whole network, in 2005 about equally split between cash and transponders. Transponders under the brand SunPass are passive backscatter battery powered from TransCore. TransCore's eGo sticker tags are being evaluated.

Florida's Turnpike produced toll revenues of $586m in FY2005 plus concessions earnings of $13m with expenses including debt service of $288m. Net income was put at $336m. Debt was $1.95b.

TOLLROADSnews 2007-01-25

Bobtail turnpike

A reader has suggested that Florida's Turnpike got the moniker Bobtail Turnpike in its early days because it was isolated. The idea is that a bobtail is the name for a foreshortened tail on a horse or a dog. Truckers driving just the tractor without the trailer often say they are 'bobtailing' and the tractor tooling along by itself is called a Bobtail.

So the theory goes in the early days of turnpikes there were a lot of interconnected turnpikes - PA, OH, IN, IL, NJ, DE, NY, CT, NH, ME etc. By contrast Florida's Turnpike was out there all alone, all by itself, and hence a "bobtail."

If that's the case there are plenty of other bobtail turnpikes out there: KS, CO, TX, VA, WV etc.

Apologies for spelling the new FL governor Charie Crist as Charlie Christ. Someone called it blasphemy - whether against the governor or against Christianity we're not clear. TOLLROADSnews 2007-01-26