Is The Mayor Purposely Slowing Down Transit Study? By Geniusofdespair

My theory is, that Mayor Gimenez is intentionally slowing down transit studies through his Transit Guru (cough) Alice Bravo.  Now she said they need another year to get studies done. Commission Chairman Bovo believes transit has been studied to death but still the County Commission granted a 12 month extension on the Study that was due. County Commissioner Daniella Levine Cava said "we are obviously doing a disservice to the public."

You can't file for federal funds without the study. This applying for federal funds for transit has been going on since Alex Penelas was Mayor (1996-2004). Never happened. It has always been a sweetener to all the deals for transit bonds pitches: "Federal Funds" can be had. However, I called the Federal Funding Agency long ago and they said that all the States were competing for the same funds so just because you APPLY doesn't mean you will get them. And, if we had been applying every year  for the past 15 years, since Alex Penelas was Mayor, we would probably be more likely to be in line for them by now. Although our miraculous president of the US said: "Trump says he'll get federal permits for Miami transit so fast your head will spin" Right. Permits maybe - he didn't say funds or even matching funds.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article204659064.html#storylink=cpy

Meanwhile according to the Miami Herald:

Eight months after he shook up Miami-Dade’s transit debate by proposing a high-tech “virtual train” bus as an alternative to expanding Metrorail, Mayor Carlos Gimenez is leading a delegation to visit the Chinese company that hopes to start selling the vehicles. and:

Gimenez first floated the idea of using vehicles from the government-owned Chinese company during the summer of 2017, when he proposed a $534 million plan to create rapid-transit bus systems to connect Metrorail with commuters in Miami’s northern and southern suburbs. He pitched the idea as far more realistic than expanding Metrorail along the same routes, a project his administration said would cost at least $1.5 billion to build. and:

Along with cost, Gimenez pointed to a coming revolution from autonomous vehicles in arguing against saddling Miami-Dade with rail debt that would take at least a generation to pay back as trains become obsolete.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article204659064.html#storylink=cpy

How does that grab you for a reason for slowing down an addition to metrorail? He just doesn't want it because he just doesn't believe in it. It is apparently anything but Metrorail as far as he is concerned. So much for the will of the people and the County Commission who suffer in traffic every single day now. You can't even be on 95 after 3 pm anymore.



We would have to redesign all our roads to accommodate these trackless rapid transit cars and I think traffic would be worse at cross streets. Forget about pedestrians.

Traffic Study Conducted When Schools Are Closed? WHAT? By Geniusofdespair

We previously reported on traffic studies paid for by developers. Here is a questionable study. Were nine schools actually closed for the summer in the study area? How is it possible that Homestead Hudstead allowed and accepted this study? The Kingman Commons Traffic Study for SW 152nd Avenue and SW 320 Street in Homestead -- dated August 1st 2014. The Study is 252 pages long. It looks very official (Scrolling through it, I am sure no one read it). I wasn't going to read the damn thing, am I assuming too much from the date of the study and the (July 17th date I found) that schools were closed? I don't think so.

Traffic studies are just cover for developments.

Traffic is Freaking the Citizens Out and It Falls on Mayor Gimenez. By Geniusofdespair

Yes the unions are angry. They don't have a contract, there is no good faith bargaining going on. The number of buses are being reduced, the county doesn't have enough people to do the repairs so buses and metro cars are breaking down, delaying commuters, pushing them back into their cars. Commuters need RELIABLE transit. The Union and the public are pissed off, hence the full page ad:

Full page ad in Miami Herald

Traffic can't be fixed if you keep building roads, Mayor Gimenez your 836 extension idea sucks big-time, watch the damn video:

There was a Traffic Summit on Saturday. Do you know that MAYOR GIMENEZ’s new metro cars are not outfitted for surface transit? The extra bucks that would have made them dual purpose were not paid to put the electric connections at top of the cars. They can only run from the bottom. Maybe it is not too late. We could gut the whole order...
Shows they never had an intention to run the Rail South. All we are getting is bulls—t.

 Few of the complaining residents were at the Traffic Summit on Saturday, although it looks like a lot of people showed up. They do not do the walk only the talk. My only complaint was one person summarized very shortly for 3 or 4 tables and the other tables got a full summary each that lasted longer.  The water transportation was just glossed over.

I was part of a Facebook group that was concerned about transit down South but gave up with this post (that they deleted):

Activists are people willing to walk the walk they are not just Facebook posters and worse: whiners. I don't see many people willing "to DO" here. In fact the complaining and no doing is such a bad combination I am leaving this group. You make me too depressed.  If you all united and did one strategic thing you would get something done  on transit. The bold move is needed but you all are, all over the place. I suggested a building moratorium based on transit benchmarks and I suggested a Petition Drive (both bold moves). Get organized.

 Jodi Portante Atkinson is a great activist down South on transit. Watch her video. Also Edward Armand Escobar had some good water transit solutions he is working on.

Anyway here is the Transportation Summit in pictures (please everyone -- carpooling is not the answer) stop bringing it up.

County Commissioner Daniella Levine Cava who organized the Summit

Note that County Commission Chair Estaban Bovo is pictured here. I see a moratorium based on Transit  availability benchmarks rather than fake traffic studies. WE NEED AN AUDIT ON PAST TRAFFIC STUDIES. They are tainted.

County Commissioner in District 5, Xavier Suarez attended.

Citizens at work planning for transit relief. Too bad Mayor Gimenez wasn't there.

SEE MY POST ON A MORATORIUM although now I think we should do a finely tuned petition drive because most of these Commissioners are afraid to anger developers.

Developers Pay For Traffic Studies? The Corrupt Sham and Shame of It. Guest Blog by Stuckintraffic

The reality of traffic studies: You can make the numbers work for whomever is paying you and it is almost always the developer.

There is corruption rampant in Traffic Impact Studies. I had trouble sleeping last night because I was planning on writing this. So, here are a few words. There was a time even not too long ago when I was naive enough to believe that the system could be fixed:

A basic life lesson that we learned at an early age (or, that most of us learned) is that we have to clean up after ourselves, that we must “mitigate” problems caused by our actions. Supposedly, developers are required to mitigate the impact that their developments have on the traffic infrastructure by either improving the infrastructure or paying for needed improvements to the infrastructure.

This is widely accepted and universally addressed in Comprehensive Plans at the municipal, county, and state levels. Governmental agencies require the submission of a Traffic Impact Study before approving any development. And, these studies must show that the impact of a proposed development does not degrade the Level of Service (LOS) below minimum levels.

It all sounds great, doesn’t it?

But in truth, its all a sham, an imposture, a fraud. The system has been corrupted.

The legislatures – municipal, county, and state - have abdicated to the developers the responsibility and the right to perform these impact studies, and the right to choose the method of measuring LOS. So, the developers choose a methodology that grossly misrepresents LOS on roadways that are already severely congested. (In fact, the State of Florida actually recommends this inaccurate method – the count based methodology - in their “QLOS Handbook”.)

So, no matter how congested a roadway is, the developer’s impact study shows that the LOS is acceptable, even with the additional traffic that their development will generate. And, municipalities must, as required by their own laws, and by both county and state laws, accept this bullshit and approve the development.

So, traffic continues to get worse and worse.

The truth of these statements is obvious to anyone that drives on the roadways anywhere in the state of Florida.

The system is corrupt – top to bottom.

How did this happen?

The developers are major campaign donors for candidates running for public office.  In fact, many of our elected officials are actually developers themselves. As a result of their money, the developers have corrupted and now control the legislature.

It is so bad, even the traffic study perpetrators "experts" can be found on the campaign donor lists.

And traffic engineers know what side of the bread is buttered. They know that if they generate a study that shows impact, they will be blacklisted – they will never work for a developer again. And those traffic engineers that work (or contract) for a governmental agency know that if they object to blatantly dishonest traffic studies, they will never get a plum job with a traffic engineering company. And realistically, even if they did object to a dishonest study, the study will be upheld in the courts because to allow use of blatantly dishonest studies is written into law. So, engineers issue blatantly dishonest studies and professional opinions in violation of their professional code of ethics.

Both our government and professional engineering in the state of Florida have been corrupted by developers’ money. This sham really sucks and I am stuck in traffic daily because of it.

Join with Pinecrest, Palmetto Bay, Cutler Bay and County Commissioner Levine Cava (our host) for Traffic Solutions Summit - This Saturday, 9 AM to Noon, Cutler Bay Town Hall, Penthouse, 10720 Caribbean Blvd. Space is limited - register here.

(Geniusofdespair - we wrote about this in 2015 even posting a picture of the Traffic Engineer most popular with developers.)

Commissioner Daniella Levine Cava: Transportation in Miami Dade, My View. Guest Blog

This is a follow-up to yesterday's post on Monday's Transit March that Commissioner Daniella Levine Cava attended:

County Commissioner Daniella Levine Cava

We have been starving our public transit system for decades, allowing our buses and trains to deteriorate without adequate maintenance and basically running them into the ground. 

The County has recently used a decline in ridership as an excuse for yet even more service cuts. But reduced ridership comes when patrons vote with their feet. They have been abandoning a deteriorating, unreliable, uncomfortable system when other options are more likely to get them to places on time. That is, for those who can make such a choice.  We cannot blame the customer for not buying our product.

This chronic disinvestment in our transit system has to stop.  And with this last budget debate, it looks like the community made a pretty solid case for transit.  Millennials came and spoke passionately about how they want to live in a place where they don’t have to own a car. Urban professionals spoke about how they’re perceived by their colleagues as less reliable because they ride transit, and the transit dependent came out to plead for the resources needed to keep their lifeline going.

I was grateful for the public’s support to restore Transit funding during this last budget debate.  I believe this community outpouring was critical to the Commission’s attempt to reverse the service reductions in the original budget.  We weren’t entirely successful – the department still faces significant cuts this year unfortunately, but some service was restored and planned privatization of a number of routes was curtailed.  So our work has just begun. 

We have at least another year to go before we really see the new Metrorail cars make it into service, and about that long before we replace a portion of our overburdened bus fleet with new natural gas and electric buses.  So in this next year we will need that public support even more to bridge that gap.

We have three kinds of riders: those who have no choice (“transit dependent”), those who have a choice (“choice riders”), and those future riders who will ride when we have “premium” transit that is more reliable, efficient, comfortable and desirable than sitting in their cars wasting hours in traffic.

The SMART plan will bring premium transit, but to secure the bulk of the funding we must get through the multi-year process laid out by the Federal and State government to justify their investment in our plan. A major factor in that decision-making process is showing that there’s demand, and the potential to grow that demand, for transit service.  So I have focused my attention for the past three years on building up that ridership in the communities I represent by seeking immediate improvements to the transit system serving South Dade.  I believe that we must demonstrate our ability to effectively respond to our community’s transportation needs in order to earn back some of that lost public trust.  After all, how can we be trusted to effectively manage a major expansion without first showing that we can run the system we already have?

Here are some of the things, big and small, that I’ve been working on to make a dent in this enormous challenge:

·         I pressed for many months for the purchase of dozens of new hybrid-electric bending buses to replace the old and breakdown-prone fleet of buses that are the real “workhorse” of our Transit system.  Those new buses have made great improvements to the reliability of the routes they serve.  We need to keep that momentum.

·         Working with the Cities in South Dade, we identified an opportunity to create a new express route by splitting an existing route in half.  Transit worked with us to set up the “34 Express A & B” which has proved to be a tremendous success.  This is the only route to show consistently growing ridership (up by 30% at one point) in a time when nearly all other routes are suffering declines.

·         With the support of the Cities in South Dade, we also renamed the Busway to the Transitway to forecast its evolution to something more.

·         I’ve worked to make simple changes, like allowing city circulators to operate on the Transitway, and working with School Board Chairman Larry Feldman to study the potential for allowing school buses to operate on the Transitway as a way to reduce traffic on US1 and get kids to school on time.

·         The County is installing new adaptive traffic signals on the Transitway that will make it possible for transit patrons to get to their destination faster and help provide some relief for traffic on US1.  We should see improvements from this new technology by year’s end.

·         I’ve been advocating for circulators to serve unincorporated Miami-Dade since they’ve been so effective in many of our cities.  I am working to add this issue into current studies.

·         We’ve been working to build on the successful express model developed for I-95 where the tolls pay for Transit.  I’ve been advocating for the Turnpike Enterprise to replicate that system for their expressway for years. Recently Chairman Bovo renewed that effort to seek Turnpike toll revenue support for the planned express system connecting Homestead, Kendall, Doral and Northwest Dade that is also part of the SMART Plan.

We must insist that the County invest in the transit system we have today, not just the system we hope to have in the future.  We need to focus, stay hopeful, and continue to remain engaged. We were able to blunt some of the damage this time, but we need to keep building upon that to ensure that Transit remains a priority. So keep it coming!

(Daniella: I have been using public transit regularly because the traffic is mind-numbing, gridlock. I fall into your number 2 category. I go shopping at Dadeland or to Kendall restaurants by train from Coconut Grove. At least I don't lose my mind on the train ride and at rush hour it is faster than driving. I also don't have to transfer to a bus [I wouldn't]. I go directly to my destination.

I was just on 95 and the traffic was at a standstill in both directions. It was 12:30 pm. If I could have taken a train that could get me to my location I would have.  - Genius)

Traffic Jammed at Noon on 95 From the Broward Line South...

On another note: I found a video I liked...I shortened it so you could see Daniella Levine Cava, this one is about the Everglades and our water supply.

Most County Contracts Need a Closer Look. By Geniusofdespair

We all want to get the best traffic flow and there is now software available to monitor traffic at lights and change the lights to accommodate what is going on in real time. But do we want to get ripped off in the process with this $11,852,000 contract? No Bid contracts suck.

The County is ready to approve this no bid contract. However, the perks within it will cost us. They want to charge us licensing fees yearly. We are paying $2,280,709 for the software and $987,236 for installation documentation. Why don't we pay the licensing fee only once the OIG review asks? There is a $716,550 cabinet fee (85 of them). We already have cabinets. Why can't their devices fit in our cabinets? Here are the 4 main concerns the Inspector General had with the contract:

1. Software and Documentation Fees should NOT be on an annual basis.
2. The Contract includes the option to purchase Econolite Cabinets that are neither FDOT nor Miami-Dade County approved. (ROLY MARANTE IS THE LOBBYIST FOR ECONOLITE - REBECA SOSA'S FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF.)
3. The installation of video detection cameras necessitates a high degree of routine maintenance, whose costs should be included in the contract pricing.
4. The arrangement between Miami-Dade County and WAZE is not clear, even though a $127,100 enhancement to interface with WAZE is included in the price of the BW9872-1/20.

   TrafficControlModernizationServicesBidWaiver06.12.17 by geniusofdespair on Scribd

Teeth grinding traffic: the Miami-Dade County Commission aren't the only ones responsible ... by gimleteye

Commissioner Juan Zapata made news recently calling for a building moratorium in West Dade, pushed by constituents -- and his own experience -- being stuck in teeth grinding traffic.

To know who is responsible for allowing the over-development and job-killing traffic, count the members of the Board of County Commissioners who have been in office for many, many years: Bruno Barreiro, Pepe Diaz and Javier Souto. They are not alone, but they have been reliable and consistent votes for more sprawl. They are charter members of the Unreformable Majority. The traffic jam you are stuck in, is their doing.

My first foray into the politics of sprawl and traffic was in 1993, when Javier Souto was the deciding vote -- against the wishes of the Latin Builders Association -- on the requirement for a 2/3rds supermajority of the county commission to changes zoning in the county master development plan. I marshaled a civic coalition under the umbrella -- Alliance for Sustainable Communities -- and counted among the strongest supporters the same neighborhood associations that Commissioner Zapata represents today. That was more than twenty years ago.

Citizens won that battle, but they lost the war on sprawl and traffic. Time after time at the county commission, zoning approvals were accompanied by solemn traffic engineering reports: everything was fine, they said. No need to worry or panic.

More than ten years ago, there was a chance to hold the line on development affecting the wellfield protection zone and the fresh water supply serving more than 2 million residents and visitors. The issue, then, was the "transmissivity" of the Biscayne aquifer and the "travel time" of water flowing from the margin of the zone to the wells.

The Board of County Commissioners allowed major new developments in the West Dade region on the premise -- contested by environmentalists -- that the wellfield zone had sufficient boundaries to be protective of water quality. Instead of erring on the side of caution, the Unreformable Majority was relentless in pushing for exactly the forms of development that, absent good mass transit, incubate traffic nightmares.

Look no further than the influence of lobbyists -- Greenberg Traurig, first and foremost, but also including a roster of lesser players -- who for all intents and purposes owned the county commission. Rodney Barreto. Chris Korge. The big farmers in South Dade? They cheered enthusiastically as Kendall metastasized south and west to Krome Avenue.

What is really teeth grinding about today's traffic: it is exactly the collateral damage of what Miami-Dade's business community wanted. We've been writing about this for a long time at Eye On Miami. Do a quick archive search, under "traffic" or just type "traffic" in the search bar.

Why do voters keep returning Barreiro, Souto, and Diaz to elected office? Judging by their near-permanent incumbencies, apparently teeth grinding traffic is what voters want, too.

Amen on the Horrific Traffic in Your District Commissioner Zapata. By Geniusofdespair

County Commissioner Juan Zapata is right that traffic is worst in his district. It is a nightmare. Here is what Commissioner Zapata is proposing:

Excessive traffic congestion negatively impacts the lives of residents countywide, but residents of the West End suffer substantially more than the average Miami-Dade County resident.

With the issuing of this memorandum, I am respectfully urging the Administration and my colleagues on the Board of County Commissioners to support a building moratorium on new residential and commercial development in District 11 until we can develop a comprehensive plan that significantly alters the current path of the District.

No more development in the West End until traffic issues are addressed.

I hope the rest of the County Commission can support him on this. Way to go Juan! But remember, building more/wider roads in like loosening your belt to lose weight. It doesn't address the issue.

Uber Drivers Beware of the Ides of March...I Mean the Golden Glades Interchange. By Geniusofdespair

 

Only in Miami would a driver be faced with a screen like this on their navigation device. Talk about having to take your eyes off the road to figure out where you are going: This is it! So Uber drivers when approaching the Golden Glades Interchange: DON'T LOOK AT THE SCREEN. JUST LISTEN CAREFULLY TO THE NAVIGATION DIRECTIONS.

Miami Traffic: The Kendall Federation of Homeowners Associations Shakes An Angry Fist ... AGAIN ... by gimleteye

The Miami Herald "Naked Politics" features a brief note: "In Kendall, homeowners group wants to freeze growth until "unbearable" traffic eases": The Kendall Federation of Homeowners Associations on Thursday passed a resolution urging Miami-Dade commissioners to impose a moratorium on new development west of the Florida Turnpike until traffic improves. The resolution calls the traffic "unbearable" and "becoming worse".

In 1992, when I moved my family from the Keys to Miami, I was already involved with group efforts to protect Florida Bay and the Everglades from upstream polluters. In the Keys, coral reef decline, Florida Bay algae blooms, and upstream pollution by Big Sugar absorbed the members of local grass roots groups and the Everglades Coalition.

I decided to focus my energies and interests in Miami, on land use laws and zoning on the fringe of Miami-Dade County. On a piece of paper, I formed "the Alliance for Sustainable Communities", a new non-profit organization.

In the Keys, I had learned hard fought lessons of comprehensive land use planning: especially where the intersection of money, politics, development, and environmental concerns collide. Richard Grosso, a young attorney, was battling to use state laws to limit inappropriate development. Traffic concurrency mandates in state law featured high on the list. Richard was also a warrior who represented community groups and activists like Dagney Johnson, Grace Maniello, Debbie Harrison, and George Kunst who I joined to tangle with the pro-growth Monroe County Commission. (We called county commissioners, the Concrete Coalition.)

To make long matters short, the state laws the public relied upon were bit-by-bit eroded and then eviscerated by successive Republican governors GOP legislatures, with the coup de grace delivered in the first term of Florida Gov. Rick Scott.

What is no more, however, does deserve retelling.

With "Alliance for Sustainable Communities", I began enlisting allies. I started by contacting homeowner associations already formed to protect, at least in name, quality of life from the impacts of overdevelopment. Traffic, of course, was the number one issue. Twenty five years ago. Through this project, I formed friendships with Lizz Plater Zyberk and her husband, Andres Duany, the Miami-based founders of New Urbanism.

One of the first groups to sign onto the project -- grouping the interests of homeowner associations under an umbrella to protect quality of life -- was the Kendall Federation of Homeowner Associations, then run by a pixie firebrand, the late Dorothy Cissel. Dorothy set our first meeting at a gas station parking lot at the corner of Kendall Drive and, I think, 157th Avenue. I was thirty years her junior, and she looked at me as if to say, "Do you really have any idea what you are dealing with, here?" She pointed west from 157th Avenue and said: "None of this land" -- mostly vacant farmland at the time -- "should be developed into sprawl". It is all sprawl now.

Well. Dorothy Cissel was a fighter just like my friends in the Keys. We'd give it our best shot, I promised her.

The Kendall Federation, that recently passed a resolution asking for the "M" word -- MORATORIUM -- on future growth -- represented nearly a thousand homeowners at the time. The board of directors was fractious on issues of growth, because developers or their surrogates, threw obstacles mostly devised by pro-growth lobbyists and the Latin Builders Association.

To pull all the homeowner associations together required work and focus. At the time, I had a single ally to quality of life issues on the county commission, a young Cuban American attorney; Miguel Diaz de la Portilla. The first project, we decided, that could benefit from a groundswell grass roots movement was a simple one that was extraordinarily toxic to the builders: to give county commissioners the authority to require a 2/3rds supermajority vote by county commissioners -- instead of a simple majority -- to change or modify property zoning. (I have a lot of documentation that is boxed away somewhere, and my memory is a little foggy on the details but retelling accurately the history would be an interesting thesis project.) Diaz de la Portilla, now a state senator, no longer represents the public interest as he did in his early days as a smart, motivated and knowledgable county commissioner.

The Kendall Federation of Homeowners was a strong ally, and Dorothy Cissel knew how to wield influence at County Hall during a series of hearings on the measure. The auditorium was packed on the day of the decisive vote. The Latin Builders Association lobbied ferociously to halt the measure they derided as stopping growth and hurting jobs and damned it as the complaint of "I've got mine'ers". They also used the ethnic card: Anglos versus Cuban Americans.

In a famous 1993 hearing, County Commissioner Javier Souto flipped his vote and sided with Alliance for Sustainable Community allies. It was a shock and surprise, and the Latin Builders board members in the audience stamped out the county auditorium in a cold rage. The measure passed and stands to this day. But go take a look at the intersection of Kendall Drive and 157th Avenue and consider: what did we win that night?

As with so many other land use battles; we won the skirmish but lost the war. Sprawl crept westward to the Everglades and is about to swallow Krome Avenue. That was another battle -- for the western edge -- that Richard Grosso and allies like Pat and John Wade fought and lost, trying to use state laws governing growth that were ultimately burned in a Florida lobbyist/developers' version of Krystal Nacht in Tallahassee.

Growth management in Florida is dead. The GOP legislature empowers local county commissions to chart their own fate except, of course, when it comes to hydraulic fracking to benefit oil and gas drillers: then, what locals want, doesn't count.

One of the reasons that Eye On Miami refers to the county commission as "The Unreformable Majority" stretches back to that experience in the early 1990's. The 2/3rds zoning ordinance proved valuable in raising the threshold to change zoning designations, but it also enriched and empowered the lobbyist class and environmental land use lawyers like Greenberg Traurig who had milked the system on behalf of land speculators and developers of sprawl for many, many years. After the 2/3rds zoning ordinance, they just adapted to milk the system more efficiently.

I do hope that the Kendall Federation shakes its angry fist again, at County Hall. The "M" -- MORATORIUM -- word was toxic to the status quo at County Hall, then, as it is now. It just takes three times longer to drive downtown, to park in an exorbitantly expense county garage, to trundle up the escalator to the county auditorium, to use it.

Miami Traffic: Wont Be Baseling Tonite! ... by gimleteye

Miami Herald: Any Proof Readers Around Anymore? And I Was in the Traffic Yesterday. By Geniusofdespair

Oops my head shadow got in JED Bush's article

You might think that they corrected the JED mistake in the on line version. You would be wrong about that.

I get it two men shot each other on I 95. I don't care. It needs an investigation, yes but not to impact thousands of people trying to get to work. The news said it was only closed between 79th Street and 95 Street. But the entire road was closed at about 2pm at 103rd Street South. I, being a brilliant traffic avoider, didn't get I 95 South after noon at 135 Street, I knew there was something amiss. I instead opted for 441. On 441 you can see I95 as you go South. Now 441 was no picnic, it took me over an hour and a half to get to 103rd Street. I couldn't take it anymore. I got off 441 there to travel back North on I 95. The traffic was a solid clusterfuck. I cannot believe they were letting people on at 135 Street when THEY KNEW that the road was closed ahead. I tried to take a video but I was driving so you have no video from me.  On channel 6.

My question is why? Why would they close a road from 4 am to 2:30 pm? People were completely blocked on I95 for hours. It was not moving. People were out of their cars on the highway. And the reports are wrong. They had 103rd Street blocked off going South. I tried to get on there when I passed it. I looked at 95 as I was directed past, and it was entirely empty at 2pm going South way way past the murders. Why couldn't I get on??? People missed work. Come on. You didn't have to close the whole road for 10 hours. If the police are that slow there is something is wrong with them. The investigation should have been over by rush hour at 8 am.

Tell us your story. I hope you don't have a prostate problem. My spouse took 1 hour to go about 60 blocks on US 1 at 10:30 am.

Traffic and Roadways: Miami's Achilles Heel ... by gimleteye

A recent Miami Herald poll by Bendixen & Amandi International identified "traffic congestion" as the second most important issue identified by voters, after "jobs and the economy". No wonder.

Borrowing a term used in economics, transit supply is inelastic. Although we have maxed out on capacity to absorb automobiles, elected officials continue to permit new developments across the county. The tipping point was breached a long time ago. Traffic congestion not only diminishes quality of life for current residents, it is a real drag on job creation in South Florida.

The answer to traffic congestion, at least in the minds of Miami-Dade county commissioners, has been to dump more cars into commutes from the western suburbs and in the minds of Miami City commissioners, more permits for condos to rise vertically in concrete canyons.

Elected officials should be held accountable, but they are not. Only a few years ago, Gov. Rick Scott and the state legislature eliminated state planning mandates intended to regulated traffic by requiring concurrency, or, a clear picture how transportation infrastructure would accommodate new population growth. That concurrency never worked in Florida is a testament; not to the willingness of elected officials to turn a blind eye so much as the talent of transportation planners and lobbyists to rationalize irrational behavior. At the same time, voters whose lives are turned upside down by traffic believe elected officials are just doing their jobs when they permit traffic-inducing construction and development to overwhelm capacity.

To this list of transit debacles that are crowding out people, you may add your own:

1) Brickell Avenue at any rush hour.

2) Access to Miami Beach via Alton Road.

3) Commuting to and from Bird Road or any of the east/west corridors.

4) US 1 at Ponce and LeJeune Rd. in Coral Gables.

5) Any cultural or sports event in downtown Miami.

Still, in the Bendixen & Amandi poll, 67 percent of respondents glided past traffic while favoring the creation of the largest mall in the United States in northwest Miami-Dade.

At Politico, Miami-based writer Michael Grunwald recently published an investigative report on a related issue: "Overpasses: A love story ... With American transportation in crisis, why are we spending our money on massive new roads? An investigation of one city’s addiction to megahighways." For those further interested, our archive under "traffic" looks at how this issue plays out over time in Miami-Dade.

Well worth your time, to read.

To the Miami Herald on "Traffic", welcome to the traffic jam a little late ... by gimleteye

Traffic has been a major theme at Eye On Miami since we started this blog in 2007. We tend to get to the heart of it, much faster than the Miami Herald.

Read this post from Nov. 24, 2014. We had more than thirty comments on that post; more than most here and at the Herald. (And we used a screen shot from Google Maps, a better one than the Herald used today!) As for more EOM views of traffic, type the word "traffic" in the search bar for an EOM compilation and see why the Miami Herald is late to the traffic jam.

Traffic. By Geniusofdespair

Traffic sucks. We all know it. Everyone is talking to me about it, "Do you know I could get home in 23 minutes and now it takes me 42?"  That is how it usually goes, but the numbers for everyone are different, the first number always much smaller.

And Sunny Isles Beach keeps building, not for people only, for your car too. The Porsche Tower is 60 stories. Sunny Isles Beach just approved another behemoth. I think the County should crack down on Sunny Isles Beach. They are out of control with their high rises. I rate it the worst place to live for traffic because they cause it everywhere around them, including inside the buildings themselves.

Why shouldn't your car have a view of the ocean?  If God is going to punish anything it might be living in luxury without caring for those around you and sullying up the environment for that lifestyle. Do you know that there are kids in Overtown who have never seen the ocean but a lot of Porsche's will have that view soon.

 I don't blame The Dezer's they just give the people what they want. I blame the county and state for not being stern with the Mayor and Commissioners. Jail could be an option. They approved yet another 60 story tower, it is denser, I think 300 units. This one is a joint venture with Armani. The units must come with enormous closets and they will be ready for filling by 2018.

Infill on the coast is ridiculous. I don't know that they can get insurance in these buildings. Maybe the people don't care? But once on the street, they have two lanes to speed around on. They will glut up the traffic in Miami Beach that is for sure.

Sunny Isles Beach. Golden Beach just North of it has no high rises. Sunny Isles Beach is 1.4 square miles with  over 20,000 people before the new building boom. They have very little in the way of shopping. I bet everyone shops on Amazon. 

Golden beach meets Sunny Isles Beach property line….

NO-GO: Traffic in Miami Dade County is Unbearable. By Geniusofdespair

Both of these Graphics are 4:30 PM on a Friday

I am almost never venture out in rush hour but this year I tack on an extra 1/2 hour to get anywhere during anytime of the day. And I mean 5 or 6 miles.

I started listening to classical music in the car to remain calm. While stopped I play Words with Friends on my phone. I suspect some of those friends cheat.

Last night there was construction on 95 and it took about an hour and a half to get home  from Coral Gables...a 45 minute ride usually. WHY WHY WHY do they do all the construction at the height of the season? I spent 4 hours in traffic all day yesterday and I doubt I drove more than 50 miles.  Do I go to Miami Beach anymore? No. Well, that is because of parking too. I go to Homestead on weekends only. I would never hit the shows at the Deering Estate - too long a drive with traffic. I only go as far as the Arsht Center and I won't go anymore once the Malaysian Resorts World development gets underway.  I can't wait till Wet Dream Miami starts development.

 I had a car in New York City and it was never as bad as here. Of course, I wasn't opposed to driving on the sidewalk. I did walk or take subways so it wasn't a problem getting anywhere. Tell us about your traffic woes. Are you becoming more of a no-go person because of the thought of traffic? Do you agree that traffic is worse than ever this year?

(Your Governor Scott just appointed Jose Pepe Cancio and Cliff Walter to the MDX Board. Jose Pepe Cancio owns a concrete company.)

The Miami Herald Editorial Board and Traffic: NOW you ask us? … by gimleteye

NOW, the editorial board of the Miami Herald is soliciting readers' opinions on what to do about our area's massive traffic congestion. We've written on this topic for years. (In the upper left search bar, type "traffic", and see a sampling like "If traffic so calm, why is the Miami Herald spinning in circles" from 2007.) A question: WHERE was the Miami Herald editorial board on this issue when all the unsustainable growth occurred in suburbs and downtown? The answer: AWOL. Nowhere. Absent.

And not just the editorial board: journalists at the Herald were discouraged from pursuing stories that tied traffic congestion and environmental harm to growth.

Where the Herald editorial board writes, "We want to be part of the solution", we can only rub our eyes in disbelief. "The Board will hold local, state and federal officials accountable." Gimleteye to Miami Herald: that train left the station a long time ago, thanks in no small part to your looking the other way, when you could have elevated readers' awareness about the costs of poorly planned growth.

It's happening right now, again!, in South Dade farmland with the 826 Extension. Why don't you start right there!?

"MDX has commenced the SR 836/Dolphin Expressway Southwest Extension Project Development and Environment Study (PD&E). The Public Kick-Off Meeting took place on September 4, 2014. As part of the scope of work, MDX incorporated the scheduling of an Environmental Forum, the purpose of which is to bring together specific key groups focused on environmental interests, elicit their input and comment, and provide a special venue for future dialogue."

"Public kick-off"? How about public-kick-in-the-transportation-ass?

Here is today's missive from the city's only daily newspaper:

There are few issues Miami-Dade residents agree upon, but here’s one: Traffic gridlock and frustrated drivers are killing us. Figuratively and, yes, literally.

We all must deal with this new reality: Weekday rush hour in South Florida in the good ol’ days extended from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. and then again from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday. But these days, almost every hour is rush hour.

The Editorial Board receives scores of letters every week from local residents who struggle to get from Point A to Point B — be it in a car, on a bus or a bike, on foot, or on rail.

We want to be part of the solution. We are asking our readers to use our page to tell community leaders where the problems exist and what ideas they have to solve them. We’re calling the Editorial Board’s traffic initiative, H*ll on Wheels. Join us, we’ll post your complaints.

After all, who better than readers know the most dangerous intersection to cross on foot?

Or where a street light is out of sync, clogging traffic flow? Or bus routes where it takes three transfers to get there?

What are some routes to avoid bumper-to-bumper traffic on Interstate 95 or the Palmetto Expressway?

We are now the third most populous state in the country, with 19 million residents and 16 million registered vehicles. Enough said.

Traffic congestion is making timely mobility in our community nearly impossible and is negatively affecting too many lives. The issue deserves as much attention as any other in our community.

▪ Bicyclists and pedestrians are being struck and killed by vehicles at an alarming rate. This must stop.

▪ A shocking number of drivers who hit pedestrians flee the scene, even when they’re not to blame. Where’s the sense of personal responsibility?

▪ Our to-and-from-work commutes are eating up our time and damaging our quality of life. This is simply unfair.

▪ Expressway tolls are eating into our wallets, but offer little tangible relief.

▪ Despite new tentacles, Metrorail still doesn’t go where many of us need to go.

And don’t get us started on the speeders, lane weavers and tailgaters.

To his credit, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez realizes we have a serious traffic problem, but how to fund projects for the fixes is a big obstacle, he said at the recent Citizens’ Independent Transportation Summit, where pamphlets addressing the problems flew like confetti.

The Board will hold local, state and federal officials accountable. And we’ll find it who’s tracking down the worst of the drivers.

What else? You tell us. HeraldEd@MiamiHerald.com.

2014 Stories of the Year … by gimleteye

Miami-Dade County:

The top story in Miami-Dade County is an exception to the rule that low voter turnout favors incumbency: Daniella Levine Cava, county commissioner for District 8.

The victory of a first-time candidate for public office is great news for a new generation of engaged citizens considering public office: yes you can!

Daniella Levine Cava won, because she was a credible candidate with significant community accomplishments and a dedicated base of well organized volunteers from within and outside her district.

Miami:

Traffic. Traffic nightmares in Miami reached a tipping point in 2014. Miami cannot be viable, by economic measures, unless there is a massive effort to fix transit.

State of Florida:

Top Republicans fight Fair Districts. The constitutional amendment, passed by more than 60 percent of Florida voters, seems inarguable: that political districts should be drawn fairly and not gerrymandered to achieve predetermined outcomes in favor of one party or another. So why have Republican leaders in Tallahassee spent millions, tens of millions, continuing to fight Fair Districts?

Nationally:

The power of corporations and money in politics has sapped the vitality of our democracy. Along those lines, when Cuban American friends say there should be no rapprochement with Havana until there are free and democratic elections in Cuba: let's fix what is wrong with our own political system -- ie. the domination of money in elections -- before telling others how to run their own.

Please, county commission: Don't fund The Nail Clipper Building … read here a brief civic-design-pollution rant … by gimleteye

Update! Funding passed.  Commissioners Daniella Levine Cava, Rebeca Sosa and Xavier Suarez voted against it. Update!

The only redeeming quality of SPAMM -- that's the Sr. Perez Art Museum of Miami -- is its architecture. (By that standard, the Performing Arsht Center isn't even on the measuring stick.)

Driving to Miami Beach on the causeway one could view the Herzog de Meuron design from afar while sighing that it is impossible to reach by car. There's the problem with downtown Miami, and we saw it coming from a thousand yards away: transit is a nightmare.

A nightmare by design.

For as long as I've lived in Miami (early 1990s), the surrender of the public realm -- that is to say, Biscayne Bay -- has been the de facto standard for decisions by local elected officials. And while I'm on a tear, here: what do foreign investors (seeking EB5 visas or otherwise) care about the aesthetic of downtown Miami? They don't unless their condo views are being blocked! The only people who care are residents: we are taxpayers too!

Now the vista towards a building designed by one of the world's great modern architects is completely obscured. (I ask, as Miami New Times did just the other day, what private donors in their right mind will fund an art museum with someone else's name on it in a place no one can see?)

The monumental Frost Science Museum is tilting up against Herzog de Meuron, shoe-horned right next door. And I mean right next door.

Science Museum (in Construction) from Biscayne Blvd, blocking the SPAMM Art Museum.

On a large scale, it looks like a cavernous Spanish Mediterranean contemporary built on a zero lot line plot in South Miami right next door to a glass box. And then; look across the street where the PAC looms like a design for a stealth warship tossed into the wastebasket.

What do county and city commissioners see when they take the same Biscayne Boulevard exit as I do?

Don't they see what a disaster was created by votes they made to clog inadequate roadways with billions in construction and civic monuments that look, together, awful?

Across the nation, planners should be led on civic-design-pollution-tours: Miami would be number one.

Over the weekend we wept at the suggestion that the county commission would vote on the world's largest ferris wheel somewhere down there. It would go right with the world's largest American Flag, donated? by a Miami billionaire.

And today, the county commission gets to vote on the Nail Clipper Building and the request by its developer for public money.

Elected officials put little environmental groups with hands held out for a few thousand dollars for educational grants through the wringer of Kafka-esque audits while hundreds of millions are siphoned off, without bidding, at the airport or through grants to insiders.

Surely, dignity exists with respect to the public realm? Somewhere?

Commissioners should drop any and all schemes for more development in downtown Miami until the transit problems are fixed. Not one more dollar.

Traffic at Art Basel Miami: … not yet New Delhi … by gimleteye