{"id":257682,"date":"2026-05-04T13:20:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T13:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/257682\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T13:20:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T13:20:08","slug":"when-miamis-bridge-goes-up-this-founder-wants-your-blood-pressure-to-stay-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/257682\/","title":{"rendered":"When Miami\u2019s bridge goes up, this founder wants your blood pressure to stay down"},"content":{"rendered":"

You can plan your route, leave early, and check traffic twice. Then you hit Brickell and everything stops.<\/p>\n

The bridge is up.<\/p>\n

For thousands of Miami drivers each week, the Brickell Avenue Bridge is a daily wildcard. It opens roughly 5,000 times a year, bringing traffic on one of the city\u2019s busiest corridors to a halt. Drivers sit, stare at brake lights, and wonder: How long is this going to take?<\/p>\n

For IsBridgeUp founder Ihor Karas [pictured above], that daily frustration looked like opportunity.<\/p>\n

Karas, a Miami-based software engineer originally from Ukraine, lives near the bridge and drives his three-year-old daughter to daycare each morning. Somewhere between the waiting and the wondering, an idea clicked.<\/p>\n

He realized there was no simple public-facing way for drivers to know whether the bridge was open, whether traffic was stopped, or whether a vessel was minutes away from triggering another opening.<\/p>\n

That gap became IsBridgeUp<\/a>, a platform built to answer one very Miami question: Is the bridge up?<\/p>\n

But this is more than a bridge schedule app. The platform pulls live status data, layers in community confirmations, tracks approaching vessels using maritime signals, shows opening patterns, and sends alerts when traffic stops or a boat is closing in. There\u2019s even live streaming from the bridge itself, so drivers stuck in line can show conditions to others still on the way.<\/p>\n

\u2713<\/p>\n

Check your inbox for a confirmation email.<\/p>\n

The idea\u2019s roots stretch back to Ukraine, where Karas built Rail-X<\/a>, a platform that helped more than 30,000 drivers avoid unpredictable waits at railroad crossings using real-time alerts and computer vision. After the war made camera-based infrastructure systems difficult to maintain, he adapted the model into something lighter and community-powered.<\/p>\n

Now he\u2019s applying those lessons in Miami.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very nice because in Miami, you have such service like FL511<\/a>,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t need to build huge infrastructure\u2026 I just connect to that service, collect data, and show it to people.\u201d<\/p>\n

That practical approach comes from nearly two decades in software, including work as a technical lead at Sony Music. Today, he runs custom software company KarasSoft LLC, but IsBridgeUp is clearly a passion project \u2013 and one that\u2019s striking a nerve.<\/p>\n

When Karas shared it in community groups, locals responded fast, with hundreds of reactions and a common refrain: Wait, this is real?<\/p>\n

His ambitions already stretch beyond Brickell. He wants to cover all of Miami\u2019s drawbridges, then cities like Chicago and Seattle, where similar chokepoints shape daily life.<\/p>\n

For now, though, he\u2019s starting where Miami drivers feel the pain most. Right there at the bridge, watching the clock tick while the boats pass by.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

READ MORE IN REFRESH MIAMI:<\/p>\n

\"Riley<\/a> <\/p>\n

I am a Miami-based technology researcher and writer with a passion for sharing stories about the South Florida tech ecosystem. I particularly enjoy learning about GovTech startups, cutting-edge applications of artificial intelligence, and innovators that leverage technology to transform society for the better. Always open for pitches via Twitter @rileywk or www.RileyKaminer.com.<\/p>\n

\"Riley<\/a>Latest posts by Riley Kaminer (see all<\/a>) \t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You can plan your route, leave early, and check traffic twice. Then you hit Brickell and everything stops.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":257683,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-257682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257682","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=257682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}