page_title: Transportation in South Florida
section_title: Toll roads and express lanes
hierarchical_section_title: Transportation in South Florida / Road transportation / Toll roads and express lanes
caption_attribution_description: English: The signage before the end of the new westbound State Road 836 extension.
context_page_description: The Greater Miami area, composed of the three counties of Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach, also known collectively as South Florida, is home to a wide variety of public and private transportation systems. These include heavy rail mass transit, commuter rail, automated guideway transit, highways, two major airports and seaports, as well as three county-wide bus networks, which cover the entire urbanized area of South Florida. Census and ridership data show that Miami has the highest public transportation usage of any city in Florida, as about 17% of Miamians use public transportation on a regular basis, compared to about 4% of commuters in the South Florida metropolitan area. The majority of public transportation in Miami is operated by Miami-Dade Transit, which is currently the largest transit system in Florida and was the 14th largest transit system in the United States in 2011.
  South Florida is one of the most densely populated urbanized areas in the United States overall, being bound by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and the South Florida Water Management District and the Everglades to the west, with a fairly strict Urban Development Boundary.
context_section_description: Several highways have a tolling system using SunPass and toll-by-plate open road tolling, with cash tolling being completely phased in 2014. Both the Dolphin and Airport Expressway have had an eastbound toll for years with westbound tolls implemented in November 2014. On November 15, 2014, the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority implemented their all-electronic open road tolling system on the Dolphin and Airport expressways. On the Dolphin, motorists are tolled as soon as they enter the highway from any ramp, so toll evasion can no longer take place by exiting before reaching a booth, as before. The increased tolling was not well received by motorists in its first few days.
  Additionally, I-95 has north and south express lanes from the I-195 interchange up to the Golden Glades Interchange. Work took place from 2011 to 2016 to extend the I-95 express lanes up to the Interstate 595 interchange near Fort Lauderdale. The price on the original express lanes varies depending on traffic, with tolls originally ranging from 25 cents up to seven dollars during rush hour or other heavy traffic. The toll range was raised to 50 cents up to US$10.50 in 2014, due partially to overuse. When the extension of the 95 express lanes to the Fort Lauderdale area opened in 2016, tolls rose even further, as was predicted by FDOT engineer Rory Santana. This has stirred controversy that the system, dubbed "Lexus lanes",  is creating inequality among motorists. During high demand, tolls may range around US$20 for the approximately 22-mile (35 km) distance.
  Florida's Turnpike is a north–south tolled highway that runs from Orlando to Homestead. The Homestead Extension of Florida's Turnpike (HEFT) runs through the outskirts of Miami-Dade County, while the main section runs a more central alignment through Broward and Palm Beach counties, is tolled throughout its entire route. Despite this, there is a project to add express lanes as a long stretch in South Miami-Dade is widened from six to ten lanes in places, and from ten to possibly 14 lanes for about a mile from SW 152 Street (Coral Reef Drive) to the Don Shula Expressway, adjacent to Graceland Memorial Park. Express lanes would presumably be an up charge over the existing tolls of the HEFT, which are already higher than the mainline north of Miami-Dade.
  Tolled causeways include the Venetian Causeway (NE 15th Street) to Miami Beach, the Rickenbacker Causeway connecting Interstate 95 in Brickell to Key Biscayne, and the Broad Causeway connecting North Miami with Bay Harbor Islands and Bal Harbour.
  A US$1.8 billion project to add tolled reversible express lanes in the median of Interstate 595, as well as to improve flyovers and connectivity to other highways was completed in 2014. The express lanes run for about 10 miles (16 km) between the Interstate 95 interchange to the western terminus at Interstate 75 and the Sawgrass Expressway in the western fringes of Broward County.
  The Florida Department of Transportation has a plan to add tolled express lanes to every grade-separated highway in Miami-Dade and possibly Broward County, with some under construction as of 2014 including on the Palmetto Expressway and Interstate 75 from the Palmetto to Interstate 595. Toll road and express lane expansions continued greatly throughout the late 2010s and into the 2020s, with many of the projects to be completed by about 2022.
caption: Open road tolling structure at the western terminus of the Dolphin Expressway.
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