If you are buying a Cape Coral home for the boat as much as the house, one number decides what you can keep at your dock: the lowest fixed bridge between you and open water. This page publishes that number for every one of Cape Coral's 157 canal crossings (123 with a published clearance, and 34 culverts and low fixed spans that no boat passes at any height), with its source and its date on the page, because nobody else in this market does.
How to read this table
Find your boat's air draft: the height from the waterline to the tallest fixed point, radar arch, hard top, antenna, whatever it is that will not fold down. Enter it in the box above and every crossing that would stop you turns red. Then look at the route from a specific address to open water: your access is set by the lowest bridge on that route, not the nearest one and not the average.
Two figures matter more than the rest. The median canal crossing in Cape Coral clears 8 ft, and 93 of the 123 crossings with a published figure are under 9 ft. That is the real shape of this canal system: superb powerboat water, and only certain routes that a tall boat can use at all.
The ten lowest crossings
These are the bridges that most often decide a buyer's answer. Each is a city or county maintained canal crossing with a published clearance:
- 5.5 ft: Santa Barbara Blvd over Cadman Canal
- 5.6 ft: Burnt Store Rd N over Arroz Canal
- 5.6 ft: Burnt Store Rd N over Gator Slough Canal
- 5.6 ft: Burnt Store Rd S over Shadroe Canal
- 5.9 ft: Burnt Store Rd N over Hermosa Canal
- 5.9 ft: Burnt Store Rd N over Horseshoe Canal
- 6.5 ft: Nicholas Pkwy W over Kennedy Canal
- 6.5 ft: SW 28th St over Aries Canal
- 6.5 ft: Trafalgar Pkwy over Providence Canal
- 6.6 ft: Del Prado Blvd N over Jaguar Canal
The highest is the Pioneer Bridge, Veterans Memorial Pkwy over Rubican Canal, at 13.6 ft: the one crossing in the city for which the City of Cape Coral publishes no figure of its own, and the only figure on this page that is not theirs. After it come Country Club Blvd over Montevideo Canal and Pelican Blvd over Shenandoah Canal, both at 11.75 ft.
What is deliberately not in this table
The City's bridge layer covers city and county maintained canal crossings. It does not contain the Cape Coral Bridge, the Midpoint Memorial Bridge, or the Matlacha (Pine Island Rd) bridge, so we publish no clearance for them. If your route depends on one of them, confirm it against a current NOAA chart or with the U.S. Coast Guard rather than trusting any real estate website, ours included.
The 34 crossings that are not navigable
Thirty-four crossings in the City's layer are recorded as not navigable. These are culverts and low fixed spans. A boat does not pass them at any air draft. We show them with no number rather than the zero that appears in the raw data, because a "0 ft" in a clearance column reads like a measurement and it is not one. Toggle Not navigable above to see them; if one sits between a property and open water, that route is closed regardless of what your boat looks like.
We also checked where they sit, against the city's 959 canal polygons rather than by canal name, which is the join that produces wrong answers here. 26 of the 34 are on freshwater-only canals and 8 are the plug between a fresh system and a salt one. None is on saltwater-only water. In other words, not one impassable crossing in Cape Coral stands between a home and the Gulf.
Why 157, and not the 159 in the raw file
The City's published layer holds 159 records. Two of them are not canal bridges, and each came out only after we put it against an aerial.
- One bridge, filed twice. The span on the canal between SE 20th Pl and SE 21st Ave appears as two records 22 m apart. The City filed it under Everest Canal, Lee County filed it under Heddon Canal, and both proximity descriptions name the same two side streets. There is one bridge there. We kept the City's record, which is four years fresher and carries the figure.
- One flyover that crosses no canal. The other is the Veterans Memorial Pkwy overpass at Del Prado Blvd. The nearest canal polygon is more than 150 m away. It sits in the bridge layer because the City tracks every structure it maintains, not only canal spans.
That leaves 157 crossings, and this table has an answer for all of them. One of those answers is not the City's. The City publishes no clearance whatever for the Pioneer Bridge, Veterans Memorial Pkwy over Rubican Canal; the figure we show for it, 13.6 ft, comes from elsewhere, is marked †, and is not a survey. Where two published figures for the same crossing disagree, we print the lower one. On a fixed bridge, a few inches in the optimistic direction is the wrong way to be wrong.
What this does to value
In Cape Coral the water is priced, not just the house. A lot with no fixed bridge to open water (what the market calls direct or sailboat access) commands a premium over a bridged gulf-access lot on the same canal, and both sit well above freshwater. Note that "sailboat access" is about the absence of a fixed span, not about a clearance figure. We break the tiers down in Freshwater vs. Gulf Access, and if you are weighing what your dock can actually hold, Seawalls, Docks & Lifts covers the rest of the waterfront due diligence.
Frequently asked questions
What is the lowest bridge clearance in Cape Coral?
Among the 123 crossings that publish a figure, the lowest is 5.5 ft at Santa Barbara Blvd over Cadman Canal, followed by three at 5.6 ft on Burnt Store Rd (Arroz, Gator Slough and Shadroe canals). These come from the City of Cape Coral's GIS layer and are approximate. They do not include the major spans over the Caloosahatchee.
What is the highest canal bridge clearance in Cape Coral?
13.6 ft, at the Pioneer Bridge, Veterans Memorial Pkwy over Rubican Canal. That is the one crossing in the city the City of Cape Coral publishes no figure for, so the figure we show for it is not theirs and is not a survey. Next are Country Club Blvd over Montevideo Canal and Pelican Blvd over Shenandoah Canal, both at 11.75 ft, then several Del Prado Blvd S crossings at 11.25 ft.
How many bridges cross Cape Coral's canals?
157, and this table has an answer for every one of them. 123 publish a vertical clearance and 34 are recorded as not navigable: culverts and low fixed spans a boat cannot pass at any height. None is unknown. The City's raw layer lists 159; two of those records are not canal bridges, one a duplicate of a single span filed by two agencies and the other a flyover that crosses no canal.
What is a typical Cape Coral canal bridge clearance?
The median is 8 ft and the average is 8.37 ft. 93 of the 123 crossings with a published figure are under 9 ft, which is why so much of the Cape's saltwater canal network is powerboat water rather than sailboat water.
Does this table include the Cape Coral Bridge, Midpoint or Matlacha bridge?
No, and deliberately. The City's layer covers city and county maintained canal crossings only. The major spans over the Caloosahatchee and at Matlacha are not in it, so we publish no figure for them. Verify those independently with the U.S. Coast Guard or a current NOAA chart before you transit.
Does clearance change with the tide?
Yes. Every figure here is a fixed published number, but the water underneath it is not fixed. The source dataset does not state the vertical datum the clearances were measured to, so treat them as approximate height above mean high water and always leave yourself margin. The City publishes this data expressly "not for precise measurements."
What clearance do I need for direct or sailboat access?
"Direct" or "sailboat" access means no fixed bridge between the property and open water, not a particular number of feet. If your route crosses any fixed span, your air draft has to clear the lowest one on that route, and that is what sets what you can keep at the dock.
Clearance figures reproduced from City of Cape Coral Public Works GIS open data, retrieved 31 July 2026, except the single figure marked †, for which the City publishes no clearance. Approximate and subject to change; not for navigation. C&K Realty is a licensed Florida real estate brokerage and does not provide marine or engineering advice.
