It has unrivalled natural beauty featuring mangroves draped in nesting egrets, soaring eagles and ospreys, pelicans gliding in formation, diving cormorants, and kingfishers perched at the ready, highlighted by breathtaking sunrises and sunsets over sparkling turquoise and azure waters.
It connects an island chain, stretching over 120 miles and providing stunning vistas.
It also has a new name: The Florida Keys Scenic Highway, an All-American Road.
Recently the natural spectacle of our Overseas Highway joined an elite group of only 31 roads declared by federal transportation officials to be All-American Roads; roads that have natural features that do not exist elsewhere in the United States and are scenic enough to be tourist destinations unto themselves.
With this designation, our highway joins the likes of the Big Sur Coast Highway in California, Alaska's Marine Highway and Idaho's Northwest Passage Scenic Byway.
Former U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration Administrator Kenneth R. Wykle observed: "Travelers on these roads can look into the heart and soul of America and connect with the stories which have made America what it is today."
We commend everyone involved in securing this designation, especially the Florida Keys Scenic Corridor Alliance, which spearheaded a multiyear effort to achieve the distinction.
The president of the alliance, Judy Hull, believes this designation "will bring status to us with international travelers and domestic visitors" and "will help us with tourism and future highway grant funding."
We also commend the many state, local, and county government officials who supported these efforts by successfully meeting the criteria to be All-American Road. This included keeping the natural beauty of the scenery relatively undisturbed by human activity.
This was accomplished, in part, by a matrix of actions beginning with adhering to the Area of Critical State Concern designation and using it as a valuable tool in maintaining a balance of sustainable growth, environmental protection and quality of life in the Keys. Actions also included preserving wetlands and hammocks, roadway maintenance and improvements, building walking and bicycling paths and halting, regulating or minimizing the visual intrusion of communication towers, billboards, sandwich-board advertising and FDOT's "dynamic message" signs along U.S. 1.
We believe residents and visitors both will benefit from this All-American Road designation.
U.S. 1 businesses now have the marketing distinction of being on an All-American Road, a feature that attracts tourists; the Tourist Development Council now has new copy points for ads, as do travel guides across the globe.
Tourists have a new and special reason to travel and visit along the length of the Florida Keys.
As Keys' residents travel down their very own All America Road, they can be proud of something they already knew -- it's amazingly beautiful with unique, unparalleled vistas.
We further believe this designation is not the end of a process but a milestone along the way.
Protecting and keeping the road a natural scenic attraction requires ongoing cooperation and support from government entities and citizens.
Let's all work together to keep our very own All-American Road picture-perfect.
-- The Citizen