Westbound I-395 Closes Again on Election Night — 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. — and This One Opens the New Ramp Wednesday Morning
Tuesday night's closure starts an hour earlier than Monday's, shuts the downtown ramp as well, and detours through Northeast 6th Street — because at dawn, the new ramp to southbound I-95 opens about 500 feet sooner than the old one.
The MacArthur Causeway's westbound side closes for a third straight night on Tuesday — but Election Night's closure is a different operation from the drainage work that closed it Sunday and Monday, and it ends with something new opening. The Florida Department of Transportation's I-395/SR 836/I-95 project team will close all westbound I-395 lanes at Biscayne Boulevard, and the Downtown Miami ramp to I-395 with them, on Tuesday evening, November 3, from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., in order to open the new ramp from westbound I-395 to southbound I-95 on Wednesday morning.
The posted detour changes with the closure. Drivers leaving Miami Beach westbound exit at Biscayne Boulevard, turn left and continue south to Northeast Sixth Street, then run west to Northwest Seventh Avenue and Northwest Seventh Street to reach the westbound SR 836 on-ramp at Northwest 17th Avenue. Drivers continuing to I-95 turn right on Northwest Third Avenue for the northbound ramp, or left on Northwest Third Court for the southbound ramp. Note the hours: Tuesday's closure begins at 10 p.m., an hour earlier than the 11 p.m. starts of the two previous nights, and runs an hour later, to 6 a.m.
What Wednesday morning's drivers get for the three nights is a reworked merge. The new ramp puts southbound I-95 traffic onto its ramp about 500 feet sooner than today, and the change removes a merge: the left lane will lead to southbound I-95, the two center lanes will continue to SR 836, and the right lane will go to northbound I-95, under new overhead signs. Anyone who has threaded the old weave on a beach-night drive home will recognize what is being retired.
The timing stacks the closure on top of Election Night downtown: polls close at 7 p.m., results gatherings run into the evening, and the causeway westbound closes at 10 p.m. — three hours that separate the two, and a reason to leave a downtown watch party by the posted detour rather than discover it at Biscayne Boulevard. Schedules can change with weather or field conditions; the project's alerts and detour maps are at i395-miami.com, and live conditions are on FL511.
