‘Diverging’ interchange opens today

Drivers will be on the ‘wrong side’ of the road, just briefly

“This could be heaven or this could be hell.”

Lyrics from the classic Eagles song “Hotel California” may come to pass early today when a Diverging Diamond Interchange opens on a major South Florida highway.

The new configuration has been put in place by the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority on the Dolphin Expressway (State Road 836) and North west 27th Avenue.

Similar interchanges are being planned for Broward County.

The one for the Dolphin Expressway is meant to make it easier for drivers on Northwest 27th Avenue to merge onto one of the region’s most congested highways.

But doing so will require people to get used to driving on the wrong side of the road — briefly.

Drivers heading for the expressway will stop at traffic lights and then followthe marked crossover lanes to the left so it feels like driving on the wrong side of the road. From there the idea is to make a smooth turn onto the expressway or continue going straight until the lanes feed back to the right side of the road. It works the same for traffic flowing in the opposite direction.

According to traffic engineers, traditional intersections have 26 so-called “conflict points,” areas where collisions are likely to occur. But there are only 14 conflict points in Diverging Diamond Interchanges, thereby reducing the crash potential by about half.

The new type of interchange on the Dolphin Expressway and Northwest 27th Avenue will, in the future, be joined by another one a few miles to thewest at Northwest 57th Avenue near Miami International Airport. In Broward County, at least five Diverging Diamond Interchanges are being planned for the Sawgrass Expressway (State Road 869) at: Coral Ridge Drive, Sample Road and Commercial, Oakland Park and Sunrise boulevards.

In the U.S., the first such interchange opened in 2009 in Springfield, Missouri. Since then, nearly 90 have been put into use elsewhere in the country.