Citizens of REDLAND vs FDOT. Guest Blog By Fruit Farmer Frank

Dictatorial FDOT. You're not the boss of me!!!

First we have to deal with the Fruit Fly quarantine of our crops. Now it is FDOT wanting to put a wide road through our rural farmland. Doesn't anyone want to help the small farmers?

On September 30th we heard FDOT give the BCC --Commissioners and Mayors of Cities-- their plan for Krome Avenue's widening in the farming area of the Redland. There wasn't a lot of people there to talk about it and the Chair of the Commission seemed as though he had made up his mind and when we spoke he acted like he had somewhere else to go. Chairman Monestine seemed all for the plan and let people talk who wanted it. However, he cut off Farmers and those against the plan. If you needed a little more time to talk, he just cut you off. BAM!! Now mind you, there wasn't too many people there to talk -- maybe 12. Chair Monestime certainly could have let the people say a little more since we travel so far to have our voices heard and we have so much to deal with out here with the quarantine. Have a heart Jean!

Chair Monestime was even a bit arrogant and disrespectful to his own commissioners like Commissioner Daniella Levine Cava. A term, he used, "you can find it in your packet". She can ask anything she wants, even if it is in her packet because we want to know - the public doesn't have a packet. I think that was a bit abrupt to her and us. Even Commissioner Rebeca Sosa seemed disturbed by his reactions on something she was explaining.

THE BIG QUESTION i WOULD LIKE AN ANSWER TO:

WHAT ARE THE CHECKS AND BALANCES OF FDOT??? HOW DID THEY COME TO BE??

Also the residents of the Keyes are upset with FDOT.

Imagine: You are blind trying to get from the Ziff Ballet Hall to the PAM Museum On Biscayne Blvd. Sidewalks. By Geniusofdespair

 Danger Pedestrians Trying to Walk!

I am not blind and I still couldn't navigate the sidewalk between to the two locations -- PAMM and the Ziff Ballet at the Arsht Center -- yesterday on the West Side of the street. I am nursing an injured ankle. Take a look at how they maintain our expensively designed (by Brazilian Artist Burle Marx) sidewalks in our prestige Art Center District, it is a very short walk:

If your blind, how do you not trip? How exactly do you navigate the sidewalk without hitting into something like a tree or pole or garbage pail here. Remember these fancy sidewalks cost a fortune.

This is a real obstacle course. This is where you cross to get to PAM/Bicentennial Park (to the left). You can see the crosswalk to the side street in the distance. All of this greets you on a crossing corner. Where is a straight line to cross without crap in it?

Here is a decaying support in the middle of the sidewalk. I hope it supports nothing important like the Road above it...

Why is that girder there, and the bricks and the piece of plywood? Not much to trip on here.

Bricks missing and never replaced. You could trip in the sand trap or that short pole in the middle of crosswalk area just beyond it.  What is that thing sticking out from the pole on the left.

Here it is again, looks easy to walk here.

This is where my accident occurred. I tripped on the bolts sticking up on that circle, trying to avoid tripping under that pipe that could catch your foot easily. I jammed my foot into the bolts and tripped over them. Note this is before the cross walk you can see in the photo.

Walking into these concrete barriers would be really easy. Who jury rigged this? And, then the bolts sticking up are just beyond. In front of the Arsht Center the sidewalks are maintained but this is just a block away.

Where the fancy sidewalk ends there is a dip in the middle  (you can see it about 2 feet from the end) a very easy trip in that hole you hardly notice.  Then you get to the regular sidewalk. Gracious, what is a pedestrian suppose to do in downtown?  This is not new.  I wrote about the sidewalk before in 2014 (East Side). The sidewalks must be maintained or people can get seriously injured.

I also wrote a THIRD BLOG about the East and West side of the street in 2009. The above blog addresses the West Side of Biscayne Blvd. only. Fix the damn sidewalk someone.  I want physical therapy on my ankle. To tell you the truth, these 3 blogs are good for a lawsuit.

Fascinating: Alton Road flyover closure is a stark illustration of what lies ahead for sewage management and FPL Turkey Point

News that a heavily trafficked access to Miami Beach is going to be closed so new pumps can be added to prevent cars and property from being ruined by salt water is a signal of sea level rise and its costs.

For the time being, adding new pumps to remove water pushed into pipes by higher seas will work. But only for a time. In the case of Alton Road, the water that is making driving difficult and dangerous will be pumped to an area of less pressure, but it is water being pumped back into water nonetheless with the circular effectiveness of a dog chasing its own tail.

The difference between short-term and long-term solutions to climate change mitigation is that short-term solutions are band-aids like the new pumps to be installed by (who funds sea level rise mitigation?) the Florida Department of Transportation.

Those band aids will get very costly, depending on the speed of sea level rise. Take for example, the $1.5 billion that Miami-Dade taxpayers are being asked to fund by the county commission, to put band aids on the wastewater infrastructure serving 2 million residents. That cost does not even acknowledge sea level rise. Or, what about the $20 billion in new nuclear reactors planned at Turkey Point, in the lowest lying region of South Florida? Environmentalists shouldn't be the only ones complaining.

Right now, putting band aids on flooding problems or more sand on beaches seems the right choice. There is that dog chasing its own tail again.

Forward-thinking people would ask the question, what next?, using all available science and information about where sea level rise is headed and who, ultimately, will be able to pay the bills.

Dr. Harold Wanless, chairman of the Department of Geological Science at the University of Miami and climate change expert, speaks plainly of the issue: we should be planning to relocate key infrastructure to higher ground, as a matter of national security, now. He doesn't have much company, yet, in his assessment.

Taxpayers should glean from the Alton Road flyover closure some sobering insights. On the other hand, being insightful is not a hallmark of life in the Sunshine State.

Miami Dade County Insanity, on the 18 Mile Stretch to the Florida Keys ... by gimleteye

The Florida Keys and Miami-Dade County are linked by one of the most controversial stretches of highways in the United States; the strip of US 1 called the 18 Mile Stretch. Why controversial? Because for decades the mainly two lane US 1 acted as a bottleneck for growth and for hurricane evacuation; a point of conflict within state land use planning and emergency management that kept the construction and development lobby at a high boil during an era of intense real estate pressure on fragile natural resources in the Keys. The battle whether or not to widen the 18 Mile Stretch finally concluded in 2009; the environmentalists lost and were sued to pay court costs of the government.

The widening of the stretch is nearly finished but the indignities are not. Now there is THE FENCE. The cyclone fence. The fence is an abomination. First of all, the fact of the fence, at all. One of the glories of driving down to the Keys was to be able to see free and clear to the public lands to the east and west; this is the only stretch of the Everglades that is visible anywhere along US 1 that once ran the length of the eastern Everglades in its entirety.

The land is barely above sea level, so the question that arises first of all why a cyclone fence at all? The answer, one suspects, is that some lobbyist in Tallahassee representing "The Cyclone Fence Cartel" inserted FDOT contract language requiring a cyclone fence to "protect the public". That is the first level of indignity, where no fence had been needed or wanted, before. Here is the second level: on the section of fence on US 1 in Monroe County's portion of the 18 Mile Stretch, the cyclone fence looks about six feet high. I'll say it twice so you keep this in your memory. On the Keys side of the 18 Mile Stretch the fence is about 6 feet high. It is stupid and unnecesary, but generally speaking "stupid" goes right well with decision makers in the Florida Keys. Here is a photo of what the Monroe County side of the fence looks like.



But stupid doesn't begin to describe the Miami-Dade section of the fence, twelve feet high AND TOPPED WITH BARBED WIRE. WTF? Why six feet in the Keys but twelve feet in Miami Dade plus barbed wire? Is this because fence vendors in Miami Dade are better organized than in the Keys? Because business in platted subdivisions sucks, they found a way to sell more fence by building a twelve foot fence and added a frosting of barbed wire to top it off?

It is an incredulous feeling, first distracted by the puke aquamarine concrete barrier that looks the color of a Miami Subs sign, then driving along the stretch that makes you feel like you are being funneled into an adult correctional facility. That's "progress", by Jove. Here's a photo to prove it:



Wasn't there someone, anyone, anywhere in government aware of the insult to intelligence they were authorizing, with the fence topped with barbed wire? Apparently, if there was, no one had the guts to stop it. That's pretty much the case in the dismantling of government everywhere these days: no one has the guts to stop the Republican nuts. Isn't this David Rivera's Congressional district? Or Ileana Ros Lehtinen? Doesn't one of them have the guts to tell them to tear down the freaking fence? For a hundred years we didn't need a fence on the 18 Mile Stretch and now we do? Because there is some danger lurking that the fence will stop? Maybe Democrats and trial lawyers. Or perhaps it is the teachers' fault. Anyhow if I am a visitor to the Florida Keys I'm thinking: what the hell is going on here?

I bet the fence is a business deal, a quid pro quo with a campaign contributor/fence mfg, and the barbed wire represents the expression of latent hatred of Miami Dade County politicians for the Everglades. Like Pepe Diaz, the county commissioner who owns part of a trailer park/future gambling destination bordering Everglades National Park wetlands in Key Largo. They hate government agencies who protect the Everglades and water quality and so they need the barbed wire to remind all the drivers on US 1. I expect they believe drivers need to be protected from alligators crawling up the cyclone fence. I suspect they believe all the do-good'ers who stopped the widening of the 18 Mile Stretch need to be fenced out from putting IED's in the roadway. I suspect the latent hatred springs from the not-so-latent desire to pave over every last scrap of land in South Florida whenever it becomes profitable.

But why, six feet tall in Monroe and twelve feet tall with barbed wire in Miami-Dade? The answer for that? Idiocy, pure and simple. Tear down the fence!

Are you blind? Beware of the Newly Designed Downtown Sidewalks. By Geniusofdespair

Imagine you are blind, walking with a cane in our newly designed downtown. I did when I took these photos, and to me our downtown sidewalks look like an obstacle course. And, yes, as a reader pointed out, I certainly acknowledge the brickwork looks nice, but we are imagining we are sight-impaired on this post. (hit on "read more" for more photos)

FDOT allows vendors to supply dead and dying trees ... by gimleteye

FDOT vendors are required to supply Royal Palms with 12 fronds per head, among other specifications to ensure that the state is planting healthy trees. You have to think there is some other reason that doesn't exist in the specifications for this vendor to be allowed to earn money-- our tax dollars--from dead and dying trees.

FDOT: Spending more taxpayer money on dead trees ... by gimleteye

What can you say about a state agency that can't even follow its own rules? I'm sure there are reasons its tree planting around Miami-Dade County puts up one sickly tree after another. Maybe it just thinks no one is looking.

FDOT: Spending taxpayer money on dead trees ... by gimleteye

Maybe it is stimulus money. But it's hard to stimulate something that's dead. What is up with all the crap trees being paid for and planted at Miami International Airport and around the county?

Can you guess what I created here? By geniusofdespair

Hit read more to see what this computer generated "art" represents, but take a guess first:

Yes, it is the Golden Glades Interchange!

Miami Herald editorial on target today. By Geniusofdespair

Yes, I do have favorable opinions of the Newspaper as well as negative. In their Editorial Projects outside UDB should be denied: OUR OPINION: MIAMI-DADE'S NEW WATER SUPPLY EXISTS ONLY ON PAPER they are responding to the announcement by the South Florida Water Management District that there is not enough water in the plan, recently hammered out by Water Managers and County Mayor Alvarez/vile Natacha Seijas. The NEW water sources would not be available to at least 2012 (according to SFWMD) and they have recommended to the Department of Community Affairs (State Growth Managment Agency), reviewing the applications, that all 3 applications be rejected. The Paper agrees with SFWMD’s objections to movement of the Urban Development Boundary. Also, FDOT has also weighed in on the 3 projects seeking to move the line:

“The Florida Department of Transportation has filed objections, finding that all three will increase traffic in congested West Miami-Dade. The DOT is also challenging the findings of a study that claims traffic will actually decrease on Kendall Drive by 2016, calling that conclusion "counterintuitive.''

Historic opposition that, I am sure, most Miami Dade County Commissioners will totally ignore.

Armando Codina Yet Again? by geniusofdespair

First comes investors, then comes roads then comes sprawl. That is why environmentalists fear new roads so much.

FDOT Road Ratings by geniusofdespair

On Dec. 6th I posted two maps with FDOT (Florida Dept. of Transportation) ratings on it. A to F. Here is the speed that you will be traveling on these roads. For instance, most of our roads are "F" so we will be traveling at a speed of less than 10 miles an hour on Class III arteries. PLEASE GO BACK AND LOOK AT THE MAPS AGAIN now armed with the Letter Ratings translated into speed.

This is critical information.

P.S. from FDOT:
"The rating of A-F were done to give a subjective approach to traffic. "A" being "free flow" conditions something you might experience late at night or early morning. "B" still being comfortable driving conditions but requiring more thought in lane changes etc. "C": speed and spot congestion ocurring but flow still moving.
You see the pattern emerging until you get to "E" and "F" which have more congestion until you end with stop and go conditions and in worse conditions Gridlock when nothing moves. The LOS was done so people could relate to the school grading system as a reference point."

FDOT Map South will also knock your socks off by Geniusofdespair

I am going to try to post two very large maps of FDOT's Level of Service ratings for Miami Dade roads projected out to 2015. The first post will be a North Map -- this is the second post of the South Map. (see previous for North). Remember red is "F" which means the same as it did in high school. The orange (E) and yellow roads (D) are not much better. This map includes traffic growth and planned improvements.

I hope these graphics don't crash the blog - you should be able to hit on them and they will enlarge. They will be hard to read, however, you will be able to see the red in our future. God help us all! Road rage will be the norm. Annie get your gun!

If you want both pieces together in high resolution, email me at geniusofdespair@yahoo.com And thank you FDOT Engineer you really came through in a big way.

FDOT Map North will knock your socks off by Geniusofdespair

I am going to try to post two very large maps of FDOT's Level of Service ratings for Miami Dade roads projected out to 2015. The first post will be a North Map. The second post will be a South Map. Remember red is "F" which means the same as it did in high school. I hope these graphics don't crash the blog. They will be hard to read however, you will be able to see the red in our future.

FDOT and Ethics Commission by Geniusofdespair

I read gimleteye’s post today with interest. I decided to look up some FDOT (Florida Department of Transportation) statistics to add to his blog. I like good, hard facts. Of course, the FDOT Website is so confusing I couldn’t find what I was looking for, namely FDOT’s level of service ratings for Miami Dade major arteries. When I find out — if ever - I will post them. I did find these two marginally interesting facts on their website. Since the data is old, I would bet transportation costs are up to at least 25% of an average household’s spending.

According to a 2001 Survey, U.S. residents make, on average, about 4 one-way trips per person per day averaging 10 miles each and 9 roundtrip long-distance trips per person per year averaging about 520 miles each. This translates to annual travel per person of 14,500 miles on daily trips and 4,900 miles on long-distance trips.

On average, households spent $7,681 (in chained 2000 dollars) on transportation in 2003. This represented 20 percent of all household expenditures that year. Only housing cost households more (31 percent).

(later) I just spoke to an engineer at FDOT. Don't do it, ever! It took me an hour to get this. At mile marker 8.02 on 95 there are 291,000 cars daily passing by. At the Golden Glades there are 258,00 cars daily. Over 50% of roads in Miami Dade County are "F" roads. To make things worse they expect a 6% to 7% increase on arterial roads (Kendall Drive, etc.). I said that isn't bad and he said: On an already clogged road it is.

We, Gimleteye and I, are in agreement on the Ethics Commission, it has go if it is going to continue operating as it has been. See: Charles Rabin’s Ethics Article, Nov. 26th Following the law is not working. I agree with this quote from the article because “ethics” are not about “law” they are on a higher bar:

Some familiar with the ethics commission say its rulings would be more effective if its creators hadn't decided a decade ago that findings must be based on the law, not appearances of impropriety.

''There are a lot of things that are not illegal, but they don't pass the smell test,'' said Sam Terilli, professor of media ethics and journalism at the University of Miami and former counsel to The Miami Herald.

This is paramount; also from Rabin’s article:

Critics wonder whether the agency and its $2 million annual budget -- authorized by the County Commission -- is little more than a way for elected officials to cover themselves.

''It's a weak instrument,'' said ethics board member, retired judge and former Miami Beach Mayor Seymour Gelber. ``It's been set up as a political gesture by the [county] commission.''

You bet! I have seen these County Commissioners wave the ethics rulings in the air -- as a badge of honor -- as they defend their unethical behavior. Rather not have the rulings so we can stop this sideshow.