Development
One four-lane bridge from 1966 carries everyone to the beach, and it is being replaced around the traffic. Approach roads have already moved once.
UnsplashThe Brooks Bridge carries US 98 across Santa Rosa Sound from mainland Fort Walton Beach to Okaloosa Island, and it is the only road link between the town and its beach. The current structure opened in 1966 with four lanes. It is being replaced.
The Florida Department of Transportation's project builds two new parallel spans carrying six lanes in total, set high enough above the sound to clear vessel traffic, with sidewalks, bicycle lanes and twelve-foot shared-use paths added for people not in cars. Adjacent intersections are being reconstructed, with drainage and signal work alongside. The contract value has been widely reported at around $171 million, and the work broke ground in 2023 with a multi-year programme.
A new roadway on the island, named the East Connection, has opened to one-way traffic between US 98 and Santa Rosa Boulevard as the project advances. That is the kind of change that matters to a visitor: a turn that existed on your last trip may no longer be there, and mapping applications have lagged the signage more than once.
Long term this is straightforwardly good news for anyone on foot or on a bicycle, because the existing bridge is not a pleasant crossing without a car and the replacement is designed to be.
Until then, the honest advice is to add fifteen minutes to any island trip in season and to check FDOT's own project page for the current traffic arrangement before a journey that has to happen at a particular time.
SourcingSummarised from the Florida Department of Transportation's published material on the John T. Brooks Bridge replacement and from regional news coverage of the project's groundbreaking and the opening of the East Connection roadway. Construction staging, lane arrangements and the completion schedule are all subject to change; check FDOT's own project page for the current traffic pattern before travelling.
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Who reported this
Senior Editor
Shelby has covered the Panhandle from Pensacola to Panama City for eleven years and runs this desk. She owns the pages where accuracy has consequences: which town a park is actually in, what the Brooks Bridge work is doing this month, what a storm changed. She quotes fees as bands because the county revises them, and says plainly when a number is unconfirmed.
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