Showing posts with label Miami-Dade Expressway Authority. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Miami-Dade Expressway Authority. Show all posts

Monday, July 8, 2013

So guess who fell off the truth-telling bandwagon and got back to his familiar logrolling ways in the Miami Herald? Yes, Maurice Ferre of the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority; FL state Rep. Jeanette Nuñez is 100% correct -the MDX is overstepping its boundaries. Facts show they are arrogant and territorial as hell, and it's clear they want to expand their fiefdom!


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So guess who fell off the truth-telling bandwagon and got back to his familiar logrolling ways in the Miami Herald? Yes, Maurice Ferre of the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority; FL state Rep. Jeanette Nuñez is 100% correct -the MDX is overstepping its boundaries. Facts show they are arrogant and territorial as hell, and it's clear they want to expand their fiefdom!
My comments are after the spin.

Miami Herald
Letter to the Editor
MDX is doing its job
July 7, 2013

Re state Rep. Jeanette Nuñez’s June 30 letter, MDX is overstepping its boundaries:

The Miami-Dade Expressway Authority (MDX) was created by the Florida Legislature and the Miami-Dade County Commission in 1994 as an agency of the state. Seven of MDX’s board of 13 members are appointed by county commissioners and six by the governor. 

On March 19 and June 18, 2013, MDX held public hearings on the rate issue for State Road 836. The MDX Board voted 7-5 in favor of the 70-cent option over the one for 60 cents. This new rate starts the summer of 2014. 

The toll policy and new toll rate were studied, discussed, debated and publicly aired for several years. We are no more a monopoly than the Florida Department of Transportation or Florida’s Turnpike. MDX staff and I, as chair, visited every county commissioner and as many city mayors as would see us to review plans. We were before several editorial boards, on radio and TV talk shows. The Miami Herald covered the toll issues amply and fairly. 

In the six advertised public meetings, two webinars and two public hearings, there was minimal participation. In the last public hearing MDX received the objection and concerns of seven legislators and five mayors preferring 60 cents rather than the 70-cent toll rate per mainline gantry. 

In the same Miami Herald edition, there were other articles on government expenditures for Jackson Health System’s $830 million “wish list” and the county water and sewer department’s pipe plan. Florida’s Turnpike implemented a $12 million-a-year toll hike recently. 

Freedom is not free, and progress has a cost. Americans, and Miamians, well understand that our infrastructure needs drastic repairs. As painful as toll increases are, doing less than our best would be more painful to travelers. 

MDX gets no money from Washington, Tallahassee or Miami-Dade County. If any of these governments wants to help MDX financially, we would gladly review our decisions. 

For seven years Congress has failed to adequately fund the U.S. transportation needs. Bridges are failing everywhere, even, unfortunately, our own Bear Cut Bridge in Key Biscayne. Many local cities, like the growing Doral, are concerned that traffic pains will slow growth and affect quality of life. 

Good public policy requires difficult decisions for all of us. MDX is not overreaching. MDX is doing its job. 

Maurice Ferre, chair, MDX, Miami


A few weeks ago Ferre seemed to be trying to play the all-too-rare voice of reason in Miami-Dade County by opposing fare hikes of this stealthy body most people in M-D not only DON'T understand, but instinctively hate -for good reason.

Unfortunately for both residents and common sense, that was all a mirage, since he's now back to playing the role of sycophant to the hilt that's been his designated role since he's fallen to the outer fringes of relevant politics and public policy.

It's really great that the Herald's feeble-minded Editorial Board is so bereft of any common sense that despite this being known as one of THE most apathetic and least civic-minded regions in the entire country, they run this piece without any mention whatsoever that Ferre is the former mayor of Miami -and wannabe mayor of M-D County- so that all the legions of 
know-it-alls from Aventura to Florida City who moved down here since Hurricane Andrew hit, and as we know, think they know everything -many of them, Jets fans, of course- can have some useful context to better understand a pol calling for more money for his latest crew of insiders.

Naturally, to make the whole log-rolling effort complete, Ferre compliments the Herald.
How did I know THAT was coming?
Experience!


The original Letter to the Editor that Ferre's spin exercise was trying to undo was this bit of spot-on truth-telling:


Miami Herald
Letter to the Editor
MDX is overstepping its boundaries
June 29, 2013

Miami-Dade County commissioners created the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority (MDX) in 1994 to ease traffic congestion and establish local control of toll revenues. Two years later MDX took over the five busiest roadways in the county — the Airport, Dolphin, Don Shula, Gratigny and Snapper Creek expressways. While its foundation and the original intentions of MDX were necessary at the time, in recent months, MDX has overstepped its boundaries and taken advantage of its de facto monopoly over Miami-Dade’s major roadways. 

MDX originally approved a fixed toll rate of 70 cents for the Dolphin Expressway in March, and after a 60-cent alternative was introduced, it called for a public hearing where community members and elected officials could voice their opinions on the matter. On June 19, voice them they did. 

In fact, I and several colleagues from the Miami-Dade legislative delegation attended and condemned the toll increase at an MDX board meeting. We asked the board to pass the less costly alternative, a 60-cent toll per gantry. Nonetheless, the motion for the lower toll failed on a 7-5 vote, even in the face of widespread public opposition. 

Therefore, the MDX board went about its business — not the people’s business — and passed the resolution increasing tolls to 70 cents per mainline gantry and 30 cents per ramp gantry. Before this change, the roundtrip tolls from my district in southwest Miami to downtown were $2.50. If the new tolls are implemented, the cost would rise to $4.20. Commuters who use the expressway will see an increase in what they spend on tolls when the new charges begin next summer. 

MDX has vastly overreached its boundaries as a quasi-governmental body and I hope to remedy the situation for my constituents legislatively before the charges come into effect in June 2014. To borrow the term coined by Roll Back Tolls, MDX is practicing “tollation” — tolling without representation. 

Even though MDX is a state-sanctioned agency, there are systemic inadequacies within its structure. I’m worried that MDX is not held properly accountable for its decisions because there are no elected officials sitting on the board and it has not prudently explored other options to finance future projects. I’m also worried about MDX’s apparent monopoly over tolls in Miami-Dade County and its inability to engage in active listening with the public. 

This decision to raise tolls portrays MDX as having little concern for the economic well-being of the resident, and I will remain adamant in supporting my constituency on this controversial issue. 

Jeanette Nuñez, state representative, Miami

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As always, you can read much more analysis on other problems associated with the arrogant folks at MDX at Transit Miami, where they've been hip to what MDX has been doing for as long as I've been -expanding their fiefdom.
http://www.transitmiami.com/

Transit Miami @transitmiami https://twitter.com/transitmiami
"Transit Miami is an online web journal dedicated to advancing smart growth oriented land use policies, and mutlimodal transportation in South Florida."

Jeanette Nuñez's profile on the Florida legislature's website:
http://www.myfloridahouse.gov/Sections/Representatives/details.aspx?MemberId=4524

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Really, FDOT, 8-10 a.m. twice? Nice going. Another in a long line of genius moves under the Kopelousos regime! The road to ruin!


FDOT District 6 Annual Tentative Five-Year Transportation Plan


Really, FDOT, 8-10 a.m. twice?
Nice going. Another in a long line of genius moves
under the Kopelousos regime! The road to ruin!


For those of us who learn from past history to take
a more cynical attitude towards what we hear coming
from FDOT under Stephanie Kopelousos
-one of our chief bête noires- and wonder how
they can churn-out the sort of counter-intuitive and
nonsensical consumer transit opinion polls we hear
about a few times a year, consider the following
as just an especially illustrative piece of the larger
puzzle.

I'm very pro-transit and go to lots of public policy
meetings, including ones in the morning, but I'd
almost guess these meetings are scheduled
for 8-10 a.m. so that they can attract the largest
number of possible govt. employees and as
few actual citizen taxpayers as possible.

That's not how you build trust.
Way to do outreach!


Meanwhile, the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority
is having a Board of Directors meeting on Tuesday
at 4 p.m.at their HQ,
William M. Lehman MDX Bldg.
3790 NW 21st Street,
Miami, FL 33142

List of MDX Directors:
http://www.mdx-way.com/about/structure

As I write this, 1:20 a.m., less than fifteen hours
before the meeting starts,
they STILL haven't
placed their agenda on their website.

http://www.mdx-way.com/calendar/agendas_transcripts

MDX Board of Directors Meeting - Tuesday, December 8, 2009 at 4:00 PM 12/08/2009
Location/Time

Above, copied directly from the website.
If it was there, you'd be seeing it.

You don't see it because it's not there.
Non-adherence to Sunshine Laws?

That's
not how you build trust.

----------
Miami Herald
Editorial
Get ready for new toll system
November 9, 2009

People on the go in Miami-Dade use the SunPass to avoid stopping at toll booths and paying more. It's working, too, more than eight in 10 toll-road drivers use SunPass to zip by while other drivers' cars stack up in line to pay at the toll booth.

The convenience and cheaper tolls with the SunPass transponder that drivers attach to windshields is wildly popular.

There's another paramount reason to get rid of all cash toll booths: safety.

Deadly crashes at narrow toll plazas can be prevented as cars and trucks can keeping moving on the toll road with the overhead electronic scanner debiting their SunPass account. The removal of toll plazas at six turnpike locations has reduced the crash rate by 58 percent.

Now, as the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority and Florida's Turnpike rev up to go to a totally electronic system in the next two years, drivers will be able to prepay their accounts in cash, check or with a credit or debit card through a Toll-by-Plate system. Cash-only customers will be able to prepay at thousands of stores and supermarkets statewide.

By 2011, toll road managers will also offer monthly bills with a nominal fee of about $3 for drivers who don't have a SunPass and haven't prepaid in the plate system. A camera at exits would snap a photo of a vehicle's plate and the bill would be sent by mail to that car's owner, whether a Miami native or a tourist from Ohio. And rental car companies already are working with toll managers, offering their customers a prepaid fee to use the toll roads.

All of this is part of toll road managers' ambitious plans for MDX and the turnpike. They plan to close all cash-only toll booths and to start charging for exits on some toll roads that are now only partially covered by tolls, such as the Dolphin Expressway and the Don Shula Expressway that links the Palmetto Expressway to the turnpike's Homestead extension.

Local drivers used to taking sections of those roads without paying a dime will complain, but the truth is, there's no free ride.

As it is, about six in 10 drivers using sections of toll roads like the Dolphin can get off at various exits without paying, yet their vehicles are tearing up the roads as much as those of toll-paying drivers.

The county's half-penny sales tax for transportation does not apply to Miami-Dade's toll roads, nor do they get gas tax money. So repairs to the Dolphin (SR 836) and Shula (874) and expansion of other toll roads, such as the Gratigny Expressway that's supposed to link the Palmetto with I-95 in north Miami-Dade, depend on tolls.

That said, it's incumbent on MDX managers to make every effort for transparency and accountability because they can expect a revolt from drivers used to not paying tolls on well-traveled sections of the Dolphin. They have to show that the tolls will produce better commute times -- as has happened on the I-95's toll-paying section.

They also should reduce the cost of tolls throughout Miami-Dade. With a closed toll system, everyone must pay, which will mean toll managers can reduce toll rates and still bring in more money for road repairs and new turnpike links.

And there's plenty of work ahead. MDX's five-year work plan will produce about 13,400 jobs and have an estimated economic impact of $1.3 billion. Among the improvements: working with the Florida Department of Transportation to fix the chronic congestion at the interchange of the Dolphin with the non-toll Palmetto Expressway. That's long over due.

With smart and fair toll plans, MDX can bring a little sanity and save time for commuters.


So where's the transparency, exactly?

That's not how you build trust, either.

Send questions/comments to: info@mdxway.com

Miami-Dade Expressway Authority
3790 NW 21 Street
Miami, Florida 33142

Phone (305) 637-3277
Fax (305) 637-2537