I-595 grew out of an expressway plan for connecting
Port Everglades with
Alligator Alley, first conceived in 1969 as the Port Expressway. In 1974, once I-75 was rerouted to Broward County on Alligator Alley as a part of its eastern connection from
Naples, it was proposed to be built as an Interstate. When the southern terminus of I-75 was moved from Broward to
Dade County at the
Palmetto Expressway (
SR 826)/
Gratigny Parkway (
SR 924) in the late 1970s, the construction of the trans-Broward expressway was delayed. However, in September 1978, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) officially added the eastern of the route to the Interstate Highway System, with the official designation of I-595. In the early 1980s, I-595 was planned to be partially a toll expressway to cover its cost of construction. By the time construction started on July 26, 1984, the tolls for the expressway vanished, and it was built with only minor changes in its route. The first section, between I-75 and Hiatus Road opened in May 1988, with the section between Florida's Turnpike and US 1 opening on February 24, 1989, and the last section, connecting the disjointed sections opening on October 21, 1989. The expressway was designated as I-595 on June 11, 1990, and the Rainbow Interchange with I-95 was completed on March 22, 1991, the last unfinished interchange of the original plan. The portion of the expressway between I-95 and US 1 follows the
right-of-way of the Port Everglades railroad tracks that had previously run from the
CSX Transportation railroad to Port Everglades. In 2002, I-595, along with most of Florida's Interstates, switched over from a
sequential exit numbering system to a
mileage-based exit numbering system. Numbers were changed again at about the time the express lanes were opened in early 2014. On April 9, 2022,
Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Dwayne Haskins was killed after being struck by a dump truck near
Davie when he was attempting to cross the westbound lanes of I-595 at 6:40 am near
Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport and died at the scene. ==Express lanes==