Florida State Road 997

Infobox FL State Road
shields=
route=997
length_mi=36.7
length_km=59.06
dir1=South
dir2=North
from=
junction=
to=
previous_type=state
previous_route=994
next_type=state
next_route=5098

State Road 997, also known as Krome Avenue is a 36.7-mile (59.06 km) north-south state highway in western Miami-Dade County, Florida. It runs from U.S. Route 1 (State Road 5) just south of Florida City north across U.S. Route 41 (State Road 90) to U.S. Route 27 (State Road 25) near Opa Locka West Airport, just south of the Broward County line. Its main use is a bypass around the west side of Miami, linking the routes running southwest, west and northwest from that city. It passes through Florida woodland and the edge of the Everglades in its northern two-thirds, suburban neighborhoods and farmland (primarily plant nurseries) in most of its southern third, and the Homestead business district near its southern end. Just north of its southern end, it crosses State Road 9336, which runs southwest to the main entrance to Everglades National Park.

History

State Road 205 was defined in 1931 to run from Flamingo (now inside Everglades National Park) northeast to State Road 4A (now U.S. Route 1) in Florida City along the Ingraham Highway. There it would run concurrent with US 1 into Homestead (US 1 ran through downtown Florida City and Homestead, instead of the bypass it uses now), splitting onto the existing Krome Avenue to end at State Road 27 (U.S. Route 94, the Tamiami Trail, now U.S. Route 41).

In the 1945 renumbering, the State Road 27 number was assigned to all of the former State Road 205, as well as an extension north to State Road 25 (now U.S. Route 27). The large Everglades National Park was formed in 1947, taking over most of SR 27 southwest from Florida City. Paving of this road, mostly along the old Ingraham Highway, was completed in 1956. [http://sofia.usgs.gov/publications/ofr/02-59/index.html] The extension north to SR 25 opened in the early 1950s.

In the mid-1960s, State Road 5 (U.S. Route 1) was rerouted onto a bypass of Homestead and Florida City. This removed the concurrency of SR 997 and SR 5/US 1, but the old alignment became State Road 5A and U.S. Route 1 Business until 1968.

The SR 27 designation for Krome Avenue was often confusing for motorists. At the beginning, tourists were sometimes bewildered by a designation that was recently removed from the nearby Tamiami Trail (U.S. Route 41) in 1945, but still remained on some maps a few years later.Fact|date=February 2007

Yet, even decades later, motorists were confusing Krome Avenue with another road, this time Okeechobee Road, which carried the similarly numbered U.S. Route 27 since 1949. As a result, in the mid-1980s, the Florida Department of Transportation renumbered the road. The part north of Florida City became State Road 997, which was extended south past the turnoff for the Everglades to merge with U.S. Route 1. The part southwest from Florida City became State Road 9336, and at some point it was extended east two blocks past SR 997 to US 1.

Improvements

Since the late 1960s, plans to incorporate the southern portion of Krome Avenue into Miami-Dade County's system of expressways have been repeatedly announced and killed. [http://www.southeastroads.com/fl-874.html] The original plans for the Homestead Extension of Florida's Turnpike incorporated a continuation from the southwest end of the current State Road 874 southwest to Krome Avenue, then southward to Homestead. When the proposal was defeated in 1971, the Turnpike Extension was rerouted to the present-day configuration.

As traffic demands grow on the increasingly dangerous Krome Avenue, so do intentions to widen the north-south state highway. A chorus of disapproval has arisen from Redland and Homestead, as the people living in those areas express their fear of increasing traffic changing the rural character of their neighborhoods.

External links

* [http://www.southeastroads.com/fl-997.html SR 997 @ AARoads.com]

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