New River Tunnel

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New River Tunnel

Official name	Henry E. Kinney Tunnel
Carries	4 lanes of US 1 1 sidewalk
Crosses	New River Las Olas Boulevard South New River Drive/Rio Vista Boulevard
Locale	Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Maintained by	Florida Department of Transportation
ID number	860003
Design	concrete tunnel
Total length	864 feet (263.3 meters)
Width	24 feet (7.3 meters) not counting the sidewalk
Clearance below	14 feet (4.3 meters) above the tunnel at mean low water
Opening date	December 9, 1960
Maps and aerial photos

The New River Tunnel is one of three underwater road tunnels in Florida (the other two are in Walt Disney World), that replaced the Federal Aid Highway Bridge, a drawbridge opened on August 26, 1926 and closed in 1958. It carries US Route 1 underneath the New River and Las Olas Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale.

The tunnel was built after a lengthy debate on whether to construct another bridge or a tunnel. The old drawbridge operated so slowly that it sometimes took motorists 45 minutes to cross from one end of the bridge to the other, creating massive traffic jams in the heart of the city.^[1]

In 1986 it was renamed in honor of Henry E. Kinney, who had advocated its construction while he was chief of the Fort Lauderdale/Broward Edition of the Miami Herald.