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Dear Friends,
The Beeline Highway, also known as State Road 710 across western Martin County, is one of the most important roads in the area – and also one of the deadliest. Recent conversations have reignited concern about the dangers of Beeline Highway, but the safety issues along this critical corridor have been well known for decades.
This two-lane, undivided highway between Okeechobee and Indiantown has constant heavy freight and truck traffic, vital to the economic health of the area, and it is a major evacuation route. But like so many roads in Florida, the Beeline is overwhelmed by demands it was never built to handle.
So why hasn’t more been done?
As a state-owned road, SR-710 falls under Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) jurisdiction. Our local officials have been trying for a couple of decades to get the state moving on a solution. It’s been frustrating.
The project to widen the road was first included in the state’s transportation plan 23 years ago. In 2011, there was a federally mandated Project Development and Environment (PD&E) study done, but the state balked at funding what is now a $170 million project.
Instead, FDOT has taken a piecemeal approach to tackling traffic issues on this stretch of road. People have died in accidents on the Beeline while the state fiddled.
Over the years, many elected officials have sounded the alarm here and in Tallahassee, including former Martin County Commissioner Doug Smith and most recently Martin County Commissioner Stacy Hetherington, and former Village of Indiantown Mayor Susan Gibbs Thomas, who even invited a grieving mother to speak before the Martin Metropolitan Planning Board about the urgent need for action after her daughter died in a crash on this dangerous road.
Photo Credit: WPTV
There are a few things in the works:
Realigning Martin Highway (SR 714) on the north side of 710 with SE 126th Street on the south side
Adding turn lanes at Tommy Clements Street
Adding a traffic signal, rarely found on SR-710, at the new intersection
Adding another new traffic signal at the Allapattah Road (CR 609) intersection with SR-710/Warfield Blvd
So that’s something. Sheriff John Budensiek believes that the high speed of vehicles is a big part of the problem. Locals agree: high numbers of tractor-trailers speeding on the 24 miles of the two-lane road with few turn lanes or passing zones, no traffic signals or shoulders between the Okeechobee County line and Indiantown – is a recipe for disaster.
Now we’re waiting on a larger project to widen Warfield Boulevard and improve the Allapattah/ Warfiled intersection. Funding is already lined up for the $13 million project, and it will be managed by the Martin County Public Works Department to speed construction. Still, this newest SR-710 gap project will not be completed until 2030-2031, according to FDOT’s presentation to the MPO in April.
Even prior to completing the SR-710 widening project, some Indiantown residents are calling for an additional project -- a truck bypass around the Village of Indiantown.
This year we’re celebrating Martin County’s Centennial. Perhaps by Martin County’s Bicentennial Celebration, Martin County residents will have a road worth celebrating. If you'd like to see it happen sooner, reach out to your state representatives and make your voice heard.
Want to know more about the Beeline’s history? Read the in depth story of the road by local resident Barbara Clowdus.
Sincerely,
Rick Hartman
The Story of the Beeline
The two-lane road was built over eight months in 1924-1925 by NY multimillionaire William J. “Fingy” Conners with labor from his multiple NY companies, including an asphalt company. Accounts of Conners' life reveal a complicated, brilliant, but ruthless entrepreneur, who lost his thumb in childhood, resulting in the unusual nickname.
Conners named his road the W.J. Conners Toll Road, which today is SR-710, to connect Conners’ 5,000-acre farm in north Okeechobee County to his winter home in Palm Beach County. A former stevedore who built his fortune on the docks of the major Great Lakes ports, Conners intended from the start to haul cargo to the Port of Palm Beach on his new road.
Tapping into his clout and political background in NY, Conners obtained legislative approval from the state in less than three months’ time, according to Palm Beach Post archives.
He built the road at a cost of $1,300 in 1925, which included a temporary railroad on the roadbed to haul supplies to road crews. Conners was heralded for connecting the Atlantic to the Pacific, since cargo could then travel through the Panama Canal to Tampa to Palm Beach. After his unexpected death in 1929, the state purchased the entire toll road for $660.
Although the name changed to SR-710, its reconstruction to state highway standards did not begin in earnest until the 1950s, when Pratt & Whitney Aircraft expressed interest in expanding to Florida.
The state reconstructed the two-lane Conners road to fulfill its promise to build a road to the new plant in time for Pratt & Whitney’s 1958 opening. Hundreds of tons of fill were required due to the swampy terrain, which completely swallowed two bulldozers. Today, some call the road’s reconstruction a blessing. Others call it a curse.
