A 1.7-mile-long northwest-southeast road in Belle Glade, State Road 717 is also known as West Canal Street, and East Canal Street. Parallelling the Hillsboro Canal its entire length, SR 717 extends from SR 715 to the intersection of SR 880 and Palm Beach County Road 880 on the eastern edge of the city. To the west of its intersection with North Main Street (SR 15-80), SR 717 follows the northern edge of the canal; between SR 15-80 and SR 880-CR 880 it follows the southern edge. State Road 717 is signed north–south.
The current configuration of the State Road is approximately one-third as long as its original route, which extended northward to the Belle Glade Municipal Golf Course at the edge of the Okeechobee Waterway (a canal ringing Lake Okeechobee), then past the Okeechobee Waterway to Kreamer Island (this "extension" has since been orphaned by Florida Department of Transportation).
Continuing along East Canal Street past the southern terminus of SR 717, a motorist travels eastward on CR 880, itself a former part of SR 880 - which in turn follows the original configuration of US 441-SR 80 between Belle Glade and Twenty Mile Bend.
Some commercially-prepared maps erroneously show a "State Road 717" extending eastward from Pahokee on Muck City Road, but this is, in fact, Palm Beach County Road 717 serving the farmlands surrounding Pelican Lake. County Road 717 is often used as a short cut from Pahokee to eastbound US 98/SR 700 to West Palm Beach.
Famous quotes containing the words florida, state and/or road:
“In Florida consider the flamingo,
Its color passion but its neck a question.”
—Robert Penn Warren (1905–1989)
“The present war having so long cut off all communication with Great-Britain, we are not able to make a fair estimate of the state of science in that country. The spirit in which she wages war is the only sample before our eyes, and that does not seem the legitimate offspring either of science or of civilization.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“A route differs from a road not only because it is solely intended for vehicles, but also because it is merely a line that connects one point with another. A route has no meaning in itself; its meaning derives entirely from the two points that it connects. A road is a tribute to space. Every stretch of road has meaning in itself and invites us to stop. A route is the triumphant devaluation of space, which thanks to it has been reduced to a mere obstacle to human movement and a waste of time.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)