Everglades: The ‘world’s greatest airport’ that never was

(CNN) — It was supposed to be the world’s largest airport, a glamorous intercontinental hub for supersonic airliners with six runways and high-speed rail links to surrounding cities. But today, it’s little more than an airstrip in the middle of nowhere.

The Everglades Jetport, as it was called when the project launched in 1968, started its life right at the end of the Golden Age of air travel, when plane cabins were filled with the smoke of cigars and the clinking of silverware.

Concorde was about to make its first flight, while Boeing was working on an even larger and faster supersonic passenger plane, the 2707.

With a high projected demand for faster-than-sound travel, South Florida emerged as an ideal spot for a hub, because the dreaded “sonic boom” that made these planes unwelcome guests inland could happen harmlessly over the open ocean.

But it wasn’t to be.

Commercial aviation was about to enter a different age, and environmental concerns led to the cancellation of the grand plan for the Everglades Jetport after only one runway had been built.

Now, that lone runway functions both as a training ground and a nostalgic reminder of a dream that never materialized.

Swampland

Today, the airport is known as Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport and is operated by the Miami Dade Aviation Department, which manages four other airports in the area, including Miami International — the third largest in the US for international passenger traffic.

It’s very different from what the Everglades Jetport — which was also known as the Big Cypress Swamp Jetport — was meant to be. “Some people think it’s abandoned, but it’s not,” says Lonny Craven, who manages the airfield for the Miami-Dade Aviation Department. “Right now, due to restrictions, we only have it open from eight o’clock in the morning till 5:30 at night.”

In the original plan, the Jetport was supposed to be five times the size of New York’s JFK and handle futuristic supersonic airliners carrying up to 300 passengers each.

To build it, the Dade County Port Authority purchased 39 square miles of uninhabited swamp land, 36 miles west of the Miami business district and just six miles north of the Everglades National Park.

“They wanted to put it smack dab in the middle between Monroe County, Dade County, Collier County and Palm Beach County, for easy access,” says Craven.

A planned 1,000-foot-wide road and rail corridor would link the Jetport to both the Atlantic Coast and the Gulf of Mexico.

But…