Received the following email from the City of Hollywood last Tuesday and sent it and my thoughts below it out to about 125 interested and concerned people around the area. ----- http://www.hollywoodfl.org/list.aspx?MID=517 Learn About Proposed Zoning Changes in the Regional Activity Center
The City of Hollywood invites you to a community meeting on Monday, August 24 at 6:00 p.m. at Hollywood City Hall, 2600 Hollywood Boulevard, Room 219 to discuss the planned re-zoning of the Regional Activity Center (RAC).
The RAC encompasses Downtown Hollywood and includes Federal Highway from Sheridan Street to Pembroke Road and Hollywood Boulevard from US-1 to Interstate 95. The Regional Activity Center land use designation is intended to encourage attractive and functional mixed living, working, shopping, education, and recreational activities, in areas of regional importance. To guide sustainable development, the City is undertaking ambitious zoning changes in the RAC to accommodate future growth, while preserving the character of existing neighborhoods.
The Hollywood Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA), Department of Community and Economic Development and Department of Planning have hosted a series of community meetings with residents living in and around the RAC to review the proposed zoning changes. This community meeting is open to all residents interested in the RAC re-zoning.
For additional information, contact the Department of Community and Economic Development at 954.921.3271 or go to RAC Re-zoning.
I'm going to make some phone calls and find out who will be speaking at this meeting next Monday at Hollywood City Hall.
I'm especially interested in finding out if anyone from Tri-Rail will be present to publicly speak about the latest estimates and deadlines about theTri-Rail Coastalservice, since from the looks of things, there doesn't seem to be anyone locally following up on that and holding them to account in turning big words into some tangible action.
Most of you know from experience that I'm someone who has been a longtime public advocate for much-better public transit service and facilities in SE Broward County, and have long lamented publicly at both City Halls how often Hallandale Beach and Hollywood residents seemed to constantly take it on the chin on common sense matters that are relatively easy to resolve policy-wise, and would be supported by the public, but, for whatever reason, always seemed to lack an advocate for the public at City Hall willing to push their own bureaucrats into action.
Perhaps because they are not considered sexy issues, per se.
For instance, to mention but a few things I've written about frequently with photos to show the sad reality of what SE Broward transit riders are forced to put up with,
1.) How about making sure there are actually some bus shelters on the east side of U.S.-1 in Hallandale Beach, instead of just one, located one block south of Pembroke Road, practically in Hollywood? Really.
2.) How many years has the Buzz #1 Express to downtown Fort Lauderdale -that begins at Aventura Mall on north-bound trips- used the two small bus benches opposite the McDonald's on U.S.-1 as their ONLY Hallandale Beach stop on the northbound trip, instead of the under-utilized SuperStop bus shelter in front of Gulfstream Park, opposite the Flashback Diner?
Yes, the expensive, under-utilized SuperStop bus shelter that the County and the City of HB required Forest City and MAGNA/Gulfstream Park to build as part of the development agreement to create The Village at Gulfstream Park.
You'll recall that the developers said they'd provide shuttle service from that site to the Tri-Rail station on Hollywood Blvd. -but they never did, did they?
NOPE!!!
Yes, as some of you may recall, that would be the same SuperStop that was used as a de facto home base by an army of homeless people for at least six-to-eight months from late 2013 to 2014, despite being located less than two blocks from Hallandale Beach City Hall and HB Police Dept. HQ.
Both looked the other way at what was happening, which made both bus riders and bus drivers angry since it was pitch-black at night -on purpose.
How did HB City Hall and HBPD ignore what was right in front of them???
3.) Honestly, how is it that so many years after the Hollywood ArtsPark was created by Broward County that Hollywood residents have had to tolerate ZERO bus shelters at Young Circle, near the Publix, to keep them out of the sun & downpours?
That should have been done at least eight years ago, with advertising revenue used to defray the costs of several attractive state-of-the-art bus shelters at the site that's not only where the largest number of passengers south of downtown FTL get off and on, but also right near the two corners of the Circle where Hollywood City Hall and the Hollywood business community
have long claimed that they wanted to see interesting upscale retail and residential living located, to give the city some dynamic activity.
As I've written many times before on my blog and said aloud at transportation forums throughout South Florida, one of the most positive things that can help jolt the Hollywood and Hallandale Beach economies-not just the downtown areas of Hollywood and HB but especially the under-developed and under-utilized areas along the FEC tracks that are perfect for Transit Oriented
Corridor related development, i.e. mixed-use building with retail on the bottom floor and reasonably-priced residential above- is reliable and safe Tri-RailCoastal service to Downtown Miami and Fort Lauderdale.
(Yes, as many of you know from past conversations with me, because I've seen how beautifully it works like a charm in Stockholm (especially in the fascinating and trendy Södermalm
neighborhood that I vacationed in two years ago, which from my point of view, EVERYTHING that residents of Coconut Grove and parts of Coral Gables near the University of Miami wish they were now -but aren't.
We don't need to reinvent the wheel, we just make it possible for it to succeed as soon as possible.)
Why? Because giving people the option to be able to relax in the morning and drink their coffee or
smoothies and read a newspaper or zone out on their devices on a train before they get to work beats the hell out of driving to work thru frustrating gridlock.
And people will pay for that option.
I know because when I lived and worked in the Washington, D.C. area for 15 years, my housing options always put a premium on access and proximity to the a Metrorail station. That's why I lived where I did in Arlington County and paid a premium in rent for the privilege of always being a 15-20 minute walk to a Metro station.
Those last seven years, that meant living in a great and safe residential area of hilly Arlington less than a mile from the Ballston Metro station, which itself was located below aHiltonhotel and a block from theNational Science FoundationHQ and several federal govt. agencies.
(And as longtime readers of the blog know, that was the townhouse that President Ford's
daughter Susan used to live in, which still had the Secret Service intercom system in it when I was there.)
As most of you know, I have long felt that Hollywood and Hallandale Beach could benefit from that Coastal service faster and in more tangible and positive ways than any other two cities in Broward.
So why aren't we hearing from our elected officials about what's really going on with it?
South Florida, and NOT to its credit, has once again redefined the meaning of "Free Ride." But shouldn't we all realize by now -after so DOZENS of fatally-flawed transit decisions and an equal number of poorly-executed plans- that when it comes to #Transportation Policy in #SoFL, there's no such thing as a free ride? But #Miami pols, @Tri_Rail & @AllAboardFla can't help themslves when it comes to taking taxpayer dollars and taking credit for something BEFORE the facts are ALL in
Below is a slightly-expanded version of an email that I sent out early last night, after reading the article and tweets below, to just under 200 concerned citizens, pols and news media reps in the Sunshine State, and to transportation reporters and columnists across the U.S.A. I was not able to send all the tweets to them, so... include them here
Tri-Rail would offer free rides to Overtown district residents in station deal http://t.co/A8dWMJ0PHA
— Miami Herald (@MiamiHerald) March 25, 2015
Miami Herald Tri-Rail would offer free rides to Overtown district residents in station deal Douglas Hanks, Miami Herald March 24, 2005
Tri-Rail would offer free passes to large numbers of Overtown residents in exchange for public funding of a new Miami station, part of a deal aimed at piecing together $69 million in tax dollars to bring the commuter line to a privately funded train depot downtown.
The largely state-funded Tri-Rail would offer free passes to residents inside Miami's Overtown/Park West taxing district in exchange for extracting about $30 million from the entity for construction of a Tri-Rail platform in All Aboard Florida's rail complex that's about to begin construction in downtown Miami. Read the rest of the article at: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article16221608.html
LETTER TO THE EDITOR . . .
. . . Terrell N. Fritz' Letter to the Miami Herald Editor regarding 'Why We Need Tri-R… http://t.co/vzbMOhcpvP
— Terrell N. Fritz (@TNFritz) March 26, 2015
Miami Today Tourist taxes add-on a creative way to finance vital transit Written by Michael Lewis on March 25, 2015
If Miami-Dade commissioners succeed in a creative drive to increase two of our three tourism taxes by one percentage point each, they can amass more than $60 million a year to build mass transit.
Anyone who tries to get around this county knows how vital this is, because bonding this guaranteed revenue could provide several billion dollars to start building transit immediately.
Tri-Rail's operator wants Miami-Dade County to shell out $8 mill for the train service's expansion to downtown Miami. http://t.co/KDm8tHTUSo — Miami Today (@MiamiTodayNews) March 14, 2015
@FixMetroMDT If only U & @twitter existed in 1970's, B4 so many bad ideas, ill-conceived notions & sloppy execution became norm in M-D. :-( — HallandaleBeachBlog (@hbbtruth) February 27, 2015
Miami-Dade transit committee: Let's move planned transit projects beyond just ideas on paper; let's find the funding. http://t.co/wMq8Bz80SM
— Lidia Dinkova (@LidiaDinkova) February 26, 2015
Greater Miami officials plan a trip to Colorado where they're to study how a sweeping mass transit system is being implemented. #transit
— Lidia Dinkova (@LidiaDinkova) February 24, 2015
Miami Today Editor Michael Lewis says a plan to reduce auto traffic lanes on BIscayne Blvd. is not a good idea. http://t.co/7VMfIBQ02W
— Miami Today (@MiamiTodayNews) February 21, 2015
For an existing passenger train, Tri-Rail, to link to downtown Miami, $68 million in public funding is needed. http://t.co/cM3l1lSe5r
— Miami Today (@MiamiTodayNews) December 4, 2014
A few things worth knowing while you digest the facts and anecdotes above and try to make sense of it all: In case you forgot -or never knew- the person who led the effort to change the City of Miami's former CRA district and create a new CRA district -done as part of the City of Miami and Miami-Dade County's foolish efforts to build a new taxpayer-built baseball stadium for the Florida Marlins- is none other than Marc Sarnoff. Yes, the outgoing City of Miami commissioner at the center of this story, now a paid CRA Director, and, oh yeah, someone trying desperately to elect his wife as his successor on the Miami City Commission. Really. Hastag: #Context
Now perhaps those of you who doubted me last year when I -alone in South Florida- publicly asked why the one-and-only public All Aboard Florida public scoping meeting scheduled in Miami-Dade County last year was taking place in a crime-ridden area that future users of the train between Miami and Orlando would never willingly visit without an ample display of security.
In case you forgot, this one-and-only AAF public scoping meeting in M-D was scheduled to be held at night, during the week, at a place where, IF you entered its address on Google Maps like I did and looke at it via Street View, what you saw was the side of a liquor store with debris everywhere. Again, REALLY.
As opposed to, well, having it at a centralized location in the county with plenty of parking spaces outside and plenty of air conditioned seats inside on a hot day that would ACTUALLY draw future paid train passengers for rides to Orlando? Afterall, AAF is trying to cast as large a net as possible for passengers, aren't they?
Trust me, for their business plan to be successful, their core audience can not consist of just poor people and people who lack a car to make the drive up to Orlando. But look how clumsily and amateurish it was handled when they had lots of time to decide what they were going to do? That's called portent, my friends...
Yes, but then THAT is precisely the kind of planning we've come to expect from the same AAF folks who've always got their hands out for more for the public purse, forgetting that many of us still recall how much they bragged and patted themselves on the back early on for how much theirs was a "private" enterprise.
The same people who did NOT even plan on hosting a public scoping meeting anywhere in Broward County for its taxpayers and consumers last year until I embarrassed, shamed and publicly flogged them, via several high-profile emails and blog posts that were cc'd to the South Florida, Orlando and Tampa Bay area news media, and a handful of people with power and influence in Tallahassee with an interest in logic intersecting with reason at least, well, OCCASIONALLY in public policy
Me, via the blog last May, which generated more than a few not-so-happy phone calls and emails to people who thought they'd pulled a fast one:
More Transit Policy Woes in South Florida: With stealthy and self-sabotaging friends like All Aboard Florida and SFRTA/Tri-Rail, pro-transit advocates in South Florida don't need any more enemies; 'All Aboard Florida' fails to schedule a single public scoping meeting in Broward County this Spring despite Fort Lauderdale being a proposed station, while SFRTA chief refuses to answer a simple question -Will Hallandale Beach have a station under the proposed Coastal line plan?; Just because you're pro-transit doesn't mean you have to ignore displays of transit incompetency or mismanagement when you see it! http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/05/more-transit-policy-woes-in-south.html
After I publicly outed AAF's ill-conceived plan to ignore the very Broward public -and its future customers- who'd no doubt be asked to pay in some manner or form towards a new public train station and assorted infrastructure in Fort Lauderdale, they wised-up and decided to throw one together in Fort Lauderdale. Wow, talk about disrespecting their own core consumer audience! WHO would intentionally do THAT???
Not that the people at AAF and the assorted City of Fort Lauderdale and Broward County geniuses have yet to figure out how they'll keep Fort Lauderdale's sizable homeless population from camping en masse in and near any new public train station. That, of course, is proposed for but a few blocks from Broward County's present central bus depot, off Broward Blvd.
You know, right in the middle of the area where, as has been reported upon for MANY years, homeless people drink (and often defecate) everywhere, as is entirely self-evident to anyone paying attention. With the City of Fort Lauderdale City Hall but a stone's throw away! But they just ignore it.
Why? Unfortunately, because like so many levels of government in South Florida, with rare exceptions -like open-minded Coral Gables City Manager Cathy Swanson-Rivenbark, whom I knew and trusted implicitly from her years of being an Assistant City Manager and City Manager in Hollywood, who consistently talked-the-talk and walked-the-walk on transparency and public input on public policy- they're always thinking that a PR-driven strategy will inevitably trump a logical and well-planned public policy and goal that actually requires genuine public input.
But what they almost always fail to appreciate is that the public buying-in, if the plan is smart and sound, esp. financially, almost always results in genuine public success achieved SOONER, not just the mere illusion of it.
That same unfortunate attitude I think also explains why so many public places in Florida in general and South Florida in particular seem so resolutely mediocre, second-rate and ill-conceived.
Is that what we really want with train/commuter stations that ought to have been built 40 years ago, when I was a kid growing up in North Miami Beach, which perhaps could have kept South Florida from physically expanding beyond reason -and infrastructure- including building stadiums and arenas far from core supporters, when logic would have seen them built near well-planned train stations, which would have benefited everyone, including the team's bottom line?
As a longtime public transit advocate, in Chicago, D.C./Arlington County as well as in South Florida, I think not. But just because we see the important role of public planning and public transit doesn't mean we support breaking the public bank to do so, and pretend that car-centric South Florida is, overnight, going to become transit-friendly, and therefore can sign-off on gold-plating everything so that Marc Sarnoff can see his reflection on a plaque of names for years to come. What are -and where are?- the benchmarks that AAF and Tri-Rail should have to reach in order to get the deal they want? My experience is that simplicity and ease-of-use will count for more with the people who actually use a train station in the future, since that's what they will tell their friends, family and work colleagues, and no amount of PR dollars can ever equal that.
The powers-that-be need to create train stations in Miami and Fort Lauderdale with the same mindset used to create the current international airport in Oslo, where so many first-time visitors feel exactly as I did in 2013: completely at-ease and not the least bit confused or overwhelmed. Something I know about from using O'Hare so often for so many years in the 1980's while living in Chicago, Evanston and Wilmette.
All Aboard Florida and the Federal Railroad Administration announce an additional public scoping meeting/open house in Fort Lauderdale as part of the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) process. The EIS will evaluate the potential environmental and related impacts of constructing and operating an intercity passenger rail service between Orlando and Miami with intermediate stations in Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach.
The public scoping meeting/open house will be held on Wednesday, May 29, between 3:30 and 7 p.m., at the Holiday Park Social Center, 1150 G. Harold Martin Drive, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33304. We invite you to attend and share your comments on the project. There will not be a formal presentation or comment period. Information from previous public scoping sessions will be shown at this venue.
If you cannot attend but wish to submit a comment, they must be mailed or emailed to Catherine Dobbs, Transportation Industry Analyst, Office of Railroad Policy and Development, Federal Railroad Administration, 1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE, Washington, DC 20590, or catherine.dobbs@dot.gov.
Please visit our website for more information and share this email with interested parties so they can receive updates from All Aboard Florida. Make sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
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My May 6th blog post, below, about my perspective on the public outreach efforts of All Aboard Florida and SFRTA/Tri-Rail, left no stone un-turned -or thrown if it deserved it
For those of you who are curious, I have still never received a response to my April 12th email to SFRTAExecutive Director Joseph Giulietti about whether or not Hallandale Beach will have a commuter train station as part of their proposed Tri-Rail Coastal plan, which currently shows no proposed station here in their released plans. Tomorrow will make five weeks and counting since I wrote it, which itself, was the second effort to get an honest answer from SFRTA/TRi-Rail, with my previous email never getting a response, either.
More Transit Policy Woes in South Florida: With stealthy and self-sabotaging friends like All Aboard Florida and SFRTA/Tri-Rail, pro-transit advocates in South Florida don't need any more enemies; 'All Aboard Florida' fails to schedule a single public scoping meeting in Broward County this Spring despite Fort Lauderdale being a proposed station, while SFRTA chief refuses to answer a simple question -Will Hallandale Beach have a station under the proposed Coastal line plan?; Just because you're pro-transit doesn't mean you have to ignore displays of transit incompetency or mismanagement when you see it!
Tri-Rail Coastal Link, partner56239248 YouTube Channel: Tri-Rail Coastal Link, Uploaded April 28, 2013. http://youtu.be/fFZR6ljK3og And as if I didn't have enough to say about South Florida transit issues and the way taxpayers and customers are often taken for granted or treated in either a patronizing or condecending fashion by transit agencies or transit groups, it seems that Tri-Rail is guilty of engaging in historical revisionism, too, as caught byeagle-eyed writer Sean McCaughan, above and below below to devastating effect. Congrats to him for seeing the situation for exactly what it is and not being duped as they intended. http://miami.curbed.com/ Tri-Rail Coastal Link Video Rewrites Miami's History, Gives Richard Florida All The Credit by Sean McCaughan Thursday, May 2, 2013, http://miami.curbed.com/archives/2013/05/02/trirail-coastal-link-video-rewrites-miamis-history-gives-richard-florida-all-the-credit.php
Below is a copy of an email I wrote and sent last Tuesday about the continuing communication and outreach problems afflicting some transit agencies and transit-oriented groups in the State of Florida, far too many of whom, it has been my misfortune to see over the years, have an often over-inflated image of their own role and influence in the larger scheme of public affairs. Some even seem to live in their own world, where they set their own rules. That's a fantasy world, of course, but sometimes, well-intentioned outsiders, like reporters or bloggers, are reluctant to pop their balloon and ruin the illusion they've created of being important. A world where they're rarely if ever held to account by the public at large, and more specifically, by local taxpayers or residents affected by various transit plans and schemes.
Me, I'm not afraid of popping other people's illusions, so this blog post today should be read for exactly what it is -me bursting some bubbles.
That fantasy public policy world I've just described is what many of us who are paying attention think of as the bad side of South Florida policy, where some self-interested types with connections or degrees or letters after their names, often think their access to the public teat is unlimited, and can never be turned off. This allows them, or so they think, to act with varying degrees of patronizing indifference and condescension towards the public and customers. (Think The Beacon Council and MDX, for instance!)
As it applies to the world of public transit and planning and design, they're under the mistaken impression that people who generally are pro-transit, especially those in favor of long-range trains or short-range commuter trains, like me, will just pretend they don't see displays of incompetency, stupidity and arrogance when it's right smack in front of them.
Well, not me.
The email was sent to Broward County Commissioners Sue Gunzburger, Barbara Sharief, Chip LaMarca, Tim Ryan, Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jack Seiler, with a cc to Florida Dept. of Transportation (FDOT) Secretary Ananth Prasad in Tallahassee.
It was also sent as a bcc to well over a hundred interested parties located between here and U.S. DOT HQ in Washington, D.C., with multiple stops in Tallahassee, Orlando and Broward County, and, necessarily, included other South Florida mayors, city commissioners and city mangers, as well as to certain selected reporters, foundations, non-profits, transportation websites and bloggers.
Naturally, that list started with the great folks over at Transit Miami. http://www.transitmiami.com/ As much as I'd relish the opportunity to ask the folks at All Aboard Floridaface-to-face at this afternoon's 4:30 p.m. meeting in Miami -with my video camera rolling- how they square intentionally ignoring Broward County 's residents with an honest effort to engage in outreach to the South Florida public, there's zero chance I will be attending it, since going into downtown Miami late in the afternoon is truly a fool's errand. More so if you are starting from Broward County, even if, like me, you're just north of Aventura. Besides, did you see where the geniuses involved have scheduled the meeting? 1600 N.W. 3rd Avenue, as show below in Google Maps.
What a great location for a transportation meeting!
Yes, in keeping with what apparently is the genius brains at work over at All Aboard Florida.
they've consciously chosen to NOT locate the meeting close to the FEC tracks they plan on using in the future,or, anywhere near where the most-likely customers of the service will be coming from, but rather in the Overtown/Culmer neighborhoodof Miami.
Awesome!
For those of you who are reading this far from these shores, or, even those of you reading it closer-at-hand but not hip to that address, it's NOT exactly the safest place in Miami at the time when the meeting will be wrapping up at night.
Congrats for all the bad planning and bad outreach, folks!
Yes, hard as it is to believe, it appears that the folks behind this All Aboard Florida scheme seem not to have even considered the real possibility that prospective customers or taxpayers like you or me can support the overall goal, but NOT like or support going forward with it with the particular group of managers attached to it now, since they sure don't seem very smart or savvy in trying to get their OWN message out to people who would actually be supporters or customers in the future. It's called knowing your universe. (It's like the 'Florida Marlins' screwed-up marketing/outreach for so many years while they were playing at Dolphins Stadium near the Broward and Miami-Dade county line, where, despite well over 60% of their season ticket holders living in Broward and Palm Beach counties because of the ease of the drive to the stadium via the next-door Florida Turnpike, the Marlins refused to show common sense and place a store or even small kiosks at nearby destination shopping malls like Aventura Mall or Pembroke Lakes Mall, where actual baseball fans and families go to shop. No, instead, showing their customary arrogance and bad judgment, they had their one-and-only store located in Little Havana. Really. Yes, the continuing myth of the Little Havana baseball fan dies hard. But the reality was that those fans would listen to the games on the radio (in Spanish) and buy a Marlins ball cap every 5-6 years, but would only actually go to a game every few years. Look how well that worked! Thud. Good luck Marlins getting casual baseball fans who live in or north of Fort Lauderdale to head down to Little Havana with their kids on a Tuesday school night when the Padres and Rockies come to town!) It's just like how beleaguered fans of the Dolphins or the Marlins can root for the players but NOT like or support their owners, and, frankly, rather hope that Stephen Ross and Jeffrey Loria meet their demise sooner rather than later, so that fans don't have to continue to be so conflicted with their emotions towards the teams.
Clearly if ignoring Broward residents on purpose is part of the All Aboard Florida playbook, it's NOT a Silver Linings Playbook, but rather one of a dog chasing its tail, over-and-over. A public policy story that some of us have seen played-out in South Florida for well over forty years already, with all the disastrous and logical results we see around us today as proof. By the way, as of today, May 6th, 24 days since I sent that email to Joseph Giulietti, the head of SFRTA/Tri-Rail, about prospects for a Tri-Rail Coastal commuter station in Hallandale Beach, I still have NOT heard from him or his staff. Too late! My patience with him and their indifference to taxpayers has officially expired. -----
April 30, 2013
1:30 p.m.
Do any of you have any idea why there isn't a single scheduled All Aboard Florida scoping meeting being held in Broward County, esp. In FTL, the only currently-announced prospective station in the entire county?
Prior to starting this email to you today. I checked their website and went through their archives, http://www.allaboardflorida.com/to see if there'd already been a public meeting in Broward somewhere that I somehow missed out on hearing about.
I don't know, maybe something that took place while I was in Sweden back in mid-January, and ignoring everything locally right before my trip?
No, nothing's already been held in Broward-and there's nothing scheduled
for Broward in the near-future, either.
If you know the answer to this question or have a good guess, please let me know...
I'll be sure to mention this lack of common sense to anyone I know whom I run into at the Broward MPO'sCommitment 2040 meeting at the Hallandale Beach Cultural Center on Thursday
This screw-up with All Aboard Florida ignoring Broward County residents is just the latest in a series of completely inexplicable decisions involving transit in South Florida that make it hard for a longtime pro-transit advocate like myself to have much faith in either the "system" or the people who are supposed to be running and managing transit and transit-related issues in
South Florida, as well as public outreach.
They always find a way to let you down.
Over two weeks ago, for the second time, I contacted SFRTA/Tri-Rail to get them to say definitively, one way or the other, whether their current plans for utilizing the FEC tracks foresee a train station in Hallandale Beach or not, since their current plans on their website for a Coastal line state that Hallandale Beach will NOT have a station.
But we all know that there can always be closely-held but public information that they have which they have not yet chosen to place on their public website, which is why my email to them needed to be sent -to get the truth.
As you can see at the bottom of this email, I contacted SFRTAExecutive Director Joseph Giulietti on April 12th to get his input, since he'd surely know better than anyone what was what.
And again, I'd already contacted them back in late January with this same basic questions, and never heard anything, which is how and why I specifically wrote to Mr. Giulietti earlier this month.
The response after 18 days: nothing from him, nothing from his staff -just lots and lots of NOTHING.
Like I said earlier, "They always find a way to let you down."
For now, just color me underwhelmed at the self-evident oversights that characterize South Florida transit, where, with the current cast of characters in place making policy decisions that affect lots of people and cities in this region, it's hard not to notice that taxpayers and customers almost always come in last.
DBS, Nine-year Hallandale Beach resident
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This ad appeared in last Wednesday's Miami Herald.
