Boca Chica Bridge Construction Causing Northbound Traffic Delays in Lower Keys

Construction on the Boca Chica Bridge was snarling northbound traffic on the Overseas Highway on Monday, with the Monroe County Sheriff's Office issuing a public alert after slowdowns and backups developed at one of the lower Keys' most consequential chokepoints.

The bridge carries US 1 traffic near Mile Marker 6, just past Stock Island and at the edge of Naval Air Station Key West. It sits at the point where drivers heading toward Marathon, Islamorada, or the mainland are fully committed: the Overseas Highway offers no alternate route between the lower Keys and the rest of the Keys chain, so any lane squeeze on a bridge in this stretch compounds into a significant backup with no easy escape valve.

For drivers currently heading northbound out of Key West, the practical move is to delay departure or turn back before reaching the construction zone and wait for a break in activity. Once in the queue approaching MM 6, there is no exit ramp and no parallel road. The backup, by its nature, runs south through Boca Chica Key with no relief until the work zone clears.

The Sheriff's Office alert did not include an estimated completion date for the construction work, leaving the duration of the disruption open-ended for drivers who rely on that corridor daily.

The location also carries consequences beyond commute times. The NAS Key West entrance sits in the same stretch, and northbound emergency vehicles from Key West responding to incidents up the Keys face the same bottleneck as civilian traffic. During a previous construction-related backup in the upper Keys, Sheriff's Office officials publicly flagged that construction-caused delays were "adversely affecting public safety response for police, fire, and rescue," a concern that applies with equal force to a backup at MM 6.

Drivers can receive real-time updates through the Monroe County Sheriff's Office app, available on the Apple App Store and Google Play with push notifications enabled, or by monitoring the department's Monroe County Sheriff's Office Florida Keys social media pages. The FDOT's FL511 system also provides live traffic conditions on US 1 through the Keys for those planning trips later in the day.