To help keep road traffic moving during rush hour, the Southeast 17th Street bridge in Fort Lauderdale won\u2019t open for boaters during peak weekday travel times.<\/p>\n
The bridge will remain closed at 7:30 a.m., 8:30 a.m., 4:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m., except on federal holidays, Fort Lauderdale officials announced this week.<\/p>\n
U.S. vessels and tugs with tows may still pass through at any time when giving the proper signal.<\/p>\n
The new schedule took effect on a temporary basis and was made permanent on Thursday after receiving approval from the U.S. Coast Guard.<\/p>\n
The changes are already making a noticeable difference, according to Commissioner Ben Sorensen.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt means less congestion, improved safety and a smoother commute without sacrificing marine navigation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mayor Dean Trantalis thanked the Coast Guard for working with the city to help improve traffic flow.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe permanent schedule helps ease congestion during the peak hours and improves quality of life for residents and motorists, while maintaining waterway access critical to our yachting community,\u201d Trantalis said.<\/p>\n
Susannah Bryan can be reached at sbryan@sunsentinel.com. Follow me on X @Susannah_Bryan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To help keep road traffic moving during rush hour, the Southeast 17th Street bridge in Fort Lauderdale won\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":162709,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[506,28,249,251,250,114,266,109],"class_list":{"0":"post-162708","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-lauderdale","8":"tag-broward-county","9":"tag-florida","10":"tag-fort-lauderdale","11":"tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","12":"tag-fort-lauderdale-news","13":"tag-latest-headlines","14":"tag-local-news","15":"tag-social"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}