History
Not one inch of the original alignment of SR 3 is in the current route. Until the opening of the Emory L. Bennett Causeway in the 1960s, the route to KSC was signed SR A1A as A1A was routed across the Banana River on the Merritt Island Causeway (SR 520) - and was, in fact, cosigned with SR 520 - and then northward along North Tropical Trail through Kennedy Space Center to an intersection with the former SR 402 (now Brevard County Road 402) near the shore of Mosquito Lagoon in the (present-day) Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge near Titusville.
In the meantime, SR 3 extended along the length of Tropical Trail from US 1 near Oak Hill to the southern tip of Merritt Island, where it crosses the Banana River on the Mathers Bridge (a swing span drawbridge) before turning south on South Patrick Drive (present day SR 513) and crossing the Indian River back to the mainland on the Eau Gallie Causeway (present day SR 518) and terminating at U.S. Route 1 (SR 5) in Melbourne. Between then-SR 402 and SR 520, SR 3 was cosigned with SR A1A.
The openings of the Emory L. Bennett Causeway and the Pineda Causeway (in 1971) triggered a massive transformation of SR 3. The former causeway shifted SR A1A to the north (to the newly-extended Bee Line Expressway) as SR 3 was realigned to cover North Courtenay Parkway and provide the access to the Kennedy Space Center (the segment north of KSC lost its SR 3 and A1A signs); the latter causeway prompted the establishment of South Patrick Drive as the primary southern access to Patrick Air Force Base as SR 513.
In 1976, the Florida Department of Transportation added a "C-" prefix to the signs on the stretch south of SR 520 and started the transition from State Road 3 to Brevard County Road 3 -- yet a handful of "State Road C-3" signs are still posted on Tropical Trail near the southern tip of Merritt Island.
Courtenay Parkway eventually was extended past the SR-520 beyond the Merritt Island Airport to the historic community of Georgiana, where it meets up with the older South Tropical Trail, however this is a county facility and does not carry the state road designation. The last phase was completed in the late 1980s.
Read more about this topic: Florida State Road 3
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“If you look at history you’ll find that no state has been so plagued by its rulers as when power has fallen into the hands of some dabbler in philosophy or literary addict.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)
“The second day of July 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more”
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