page_title: Florida State Road 874
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Florida State Road 874 / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Former NFL Coach Don Shula autographs a "Don Shula Expressway" sign for a fan during an event in Pinecrest, Florida.
context_page_description: State Road 874, named the Don Shula Expressway for its length, is an electronic toll road in southern Miami-Dade County, Florida. It extends 7 miles northeast from the Homestead Extension of Florida's Turnpike in southwestern Kendall to the Palmetto Expressway in Glenvar Heights, allowing traffic from the far south of Miami-Dade County and the Florida Keys to move to more central regions of metropolitan Miami and vice versa, bypassing communities along U.S. Route 1, while also permitting local access to the Kendall district. The road, named in honor of the long-serving coach of the Miami Dolphins NFL team, is maintained and tolled by the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority. Contrary to the numbering plan of Florida State Roads, SR 874 is signed north–south.
context_section_description: The history of the Don Shula Expressway can be traced back to 1957 when, in planning for the Palmetto Expressway's routing, Dade County Commissioner Ralph Fossey proposed an alternative southern alignment of the expressway to follow the then Seaboard-owned railroad southwest from near Miller Drive (Southwest 56th Street) to Southwest 117th Avenue, before heading south to US 1 at Goulds, instead of heading due south to Kendall. While the Palmetto Expressway was built to its original plan in 1961, the concept of an expressway next to the Seaboard tracks south of Miller Drive, termed the South Dade Expressway, continued to feature in transportation plans over the next decade. By the middle of 1969, bonds for construction of the South Dade Expressway were being secured from the Turnpike Authority; however, plans for the expressway were revised and incorporated into wider plans involving the West Dade Expressway (what would become the HEFT) in 1970, which included a toll of ten cents and a shift of the South Dade Expressway to the northern side of the Seaboard railroad north of Galloway Road (Southwest 87th Avenue). Funding was secured in 1971, and a construction end-date was set for early 1973. This did not eventuate due to difficulties to acquire land for the expressway's right-of-way, resulting in the final section of the South Dade Expressway, between Kendall Drive and the Palmetto Expressway, opening at midday on July 31, 1975.
  In 1983, the South Dade Expressway was renamed by the Florida Legislature to the Don Shula Expressway, in honor of the Hall of Fame head coach of the Miami Dolphins NFL team. Tolls along the Don Shula Expressway were collected at the southern toll plaza until July 17, 2010 when, as part of MDX's rollout of electronic tolling across its owned roads, the road was converted to open road tolling at the same time as the adjoining Snapper Creek Expressway. Initially, tolls were $0.25 for SunPass users at the southern gantries and $0.50 at the northern gantry, with a $0.15 surcharge for motorists using the toll-by-plate system at all gantries. The toll-by-plate rate increased on July 1, 2013, while the SunPass rate was unaffected.
caption: Former NFL Coach Don Shula autographs a "Don Shula Expressway" sign for a fan during an event in Pinecrest, Florida.
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "3600", "Image ImageLength": "2400", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS 5D Mark III", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Centimeter", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CC 2018 (Windows)", "Image DateTime": "2018:09:17 08:56:29", "Image ExifOffset": "288", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "966", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7116", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/125", "EXIF FNumber": "11", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Manual", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "800", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Recommended Exposure Index", "EXIF RecommendedExposureIndex": "800", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2017:03:15 18:46:37", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2017:03:15 18:46:37", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "870723/125000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "6918863/1000000", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "4", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF Flash": "Flash fired, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "24", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "03", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "03", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1714", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2400", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "1600", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "1600", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "3", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Manual", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF BodySerialNumber": "132125000709", "EXIF LensSpecification": "[24, 105, 0/0, 0/0]", "EXIF LensModel": "EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM", "EXIF LensSerialNumber": "000012d5cf"}