Showing posts with label traffic synchronization. Show all posts
Showing posts with label traffic synchronization. Show all posts

Thursday, February 27, 2014

Red-light cameras in Florida are on their way out and Hallandale Beach is FINALLY doing the right thing to end the revenue-generating scheme that has NOT made the city safer, but rather has made it quite infamous in South Florida; Csba Kulin weighs-in with insight and cold stone facts; @RLNOOZ


This video above ought to look familiar to almost anyone who lives in southeast Broward County, or in next-door northeast Miami-Dade County, the most traffic-gridlocked areas in the entire state of Florida. The reason? Lots of video of Hallandale Beach's detested red-light cameras in action!
Local10's Roger Lohse reports:
Study: Red-light cameras making some Fla. intersections more dangerous 
Feb 02 2014 11:34:20 PM EST   
Updated On: Feb 02 2014 11:47:11 PM EST





Per the independent survey (by mail) of Hallandale Beach residents that was conducted a few years ago by a Kansas-based company that my friend and fellow Hallandale Beach & Broward County civic activist Csaba Kulin references below, along with some previous emails of mine about the subject, it's important for those of you who are new to the blog or far from here to know that the survey was full of 'loaded' questions that were quite clearly of the City Commission's choosing -i.e. Mayor Joy Cooper's, NOT ones the public wanted to ask and get answers to, which is to say that the questions were deliberately tilted in favor of a positive response for the city to begin withthe red-light cameras were cited by Hallandale Beach residents as one of the 4 worst things about the city, a fact that the mayor consistently underplayed since she was the champion lobbyist of American Traffic Solutions, ATS,

Mayor Cooper consistently failed to see the facts that most of us could see clearly at the time: it was a pretense to increase the city's revenue, not a reasonable attempt to solve actual safety problems in this city that is boxed-in by the Atlantic Ocean and the Intracoastal Waterway to ther east and I-95 to the west, and only one road that bisects the city and allows north-south travel, U.S.-1/Federal Highway .

Mayor Joy Cooper only saw revenue - $$$.
And she was perfectly happy to take money from drivers making legal right-hand turns on red when there was no oncoming traffic, if her cameras said that the drivers didn't wait long enough.
And what was the result of that?
Lawsuits that the city lost and had to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in refunds and damages.

Much of that citizen discontent was not just because of simple policy differences but rather as I've discussed here previously, because of the rather egregious and ham-handed way that the city's program and partnership with ATS was rolled-out, with little transparency and public disclosure about relevant details that citizens like me specifically asked for and were entitled to have.
Details that, in the abstract, you'd think the city -any city- would want to have out on the table before the public if they were genuinely interested in getting the real facts out where everyone could see them so that smart choices were necessarily be made.
But Mayor Cooper and Hallandale Beach City Hall weren't interested in that.

Yes, it was yet another in the hundreds of examples over ther past ten years I've lived here where the powers-that-be at HB City Hall, like the HBPD, dis the mayor's bidding and did NOT 
cooperate because they wanted certain results, not a fair discussion and analysis of the problem and the unique geographical factors we have in this city: 3 city streets carry well over 90% of all traffic, and only one road exists that connects the eastern residents of the city on the beach with I-95. 
A complete lack of options.

Plus, there's the city's failure to actually post warning signs like other communities routinely did -where you could see them.
Instead, they had them placed behind a bus shelter located near the entrance to a retail complex -home of The Knife Argentinian restaurant- so that you couldn't  see the sign until you were even with it as you drove north on U.S.-1.
A sign that was located on the inside of the sidewalk, not where you could see it near the curb, as is the case for most but not all of those RLC warning signs in next-door Hollywood.

Even now, as I saw again yesterday, the city's warning sign on NW 10th Court & Hallandale Beach Blvd. is almost impossible for drivers to see given that there are multiple signs in front of it and it's placed in-between trees.  
Just as it has been for YEARS.



---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Csaba Kulin
Date: Thu, Feb 27, 2014 at 12:24 PM
Subject: Red Light Cameras in WSJ

February 27, 2014


Hallandale Beach Residents,
Due to the relentless hard work of our residents and three courageous Hallandale Beach commissioners, Commissioners Julian, Lazarow and Sanders we can say “goodbye” to the hated red light cameras. Unexpectedly even Vice Mayor Lewy joined the majority, stating in the Sun Sentinel that the time has come to remove them. Only the unrepentant believer in the red light cameras, Mayor Cooper voted to keep it.
I knew it was a bad idea from the start, thirty eight (38%) percent of our residents did not like it when the City surveyed us. Under the slogan of “the beatings will continue until morale improves”, we had to endure the punishment and enriched the coffers of ATS for several years to come.
There had been a lot written about the issue but today the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) had an article on its front page about “Number of Communities Using Red-Light Cameras Declines”. The article is good reading but please read the more than seventy reader comments. The comments reflect the public’s view on this issue.
I attached a link to the WSJ article for your convenience.



---------- Forwarded message ----------

Date: Mon, Feb 24, 2014 at 3:55 PM
Subject: FYI: Csaba Kulin re the City of Hallandale Beach's Red-Light Camera contract with American Traffic Solutions (ATS) which calls for city taxpayers to shell-out $150k if city terminates contract before Dec. 31 -as they've voted to do


After all the dozens of blog posts and emails I've written on the subject of RLC's over the past few years, and all of the meetings I recorded, trust me when I tell you this: at NONE of the public meetings in Hallandale Beach that I or anyone else attended, before and after the ATS contract was signed and RLC cameras were initially erected -over the intense opposition of the majority of this community's citizens -in part because of where they were put up:  NOT where traffic accidents involving speeding actually happened!- were termination fees discussed.

Least of all, mentioned publicly by Mayor Joy Cooper, who received so much from Arizona-based ATS via campaign contributions funds and emotional support, and whose tune she has always danced and sung in public and in Op-Eds.

There was never any discussion of it or the the amount until AFTER the HB City Commission finally voted to get rid of it and the mayor was on the losing 4-1 side.
We got the specific numbers$ last week, weeks after the vote where both the City Attorney and City Manager couldn't answer numerous basic questions about the contract at the meeting where the vote to rid us of the cameras took place.

To most careful observers of what's going on here, which does not include the Herald or the Sun-Sentinel, the sudden need by City Hall to talk about termination fees seems like a rather ham-handed and obvious attempt by city administrators and city bureaucrats to justify keeping the contract, despite the will of the people actually being expressed forcefully thru the elected City Commission for one of the rare times in the past ten years, albeit years after they should've.
This from bureaucrats who routinely waste money hand-over-fist into the tens of millions.

re Unamortized amounts invested:
Also never discussed when Mayor Cooper and Police Chief Dwayne Flournoy were championing it as a safety measure despite all the evidence to the contrary that it was being done to generate revenue for City Hall: it would be HB taxpayers' obligations to pay for something -equipment- that would not be used if the contract was terminated.
Folks, it's NOT a perishable cake or pizza or a time-sensitive airline ticket we're being forced to pay for, it's metal, wires and software that can be used over-and-over.
So why are we going to have to pay ATS a hidden profit for something that the next govt. foolish enough to use it will also have to pay for?


Question for the media to ask the Mayor and Police Chief: if it's all about public safety, why all these years later are there still ZERO of the required warning signs for it on either west-bound or east-bound Hallandale Beach Blvd. as you approach that U.S.-1 intersection?


Dave



---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Csaba Kulin
Date: Mon, Feb 24, 2014 at 11:43 AM
Subject: RE: Red Light Camera Contract
To: "Whitfield, Lynn" <lwhitfield@hallandalebeachfl.gov>
Cc: becjuli@aol.commlazarow@hallandalebeachfl.govalex@hallandalebeachfl.govonevision4life@aol.comrmiller@hallandalebeachfl.govNrafols@hallandalebeachfl.gov



February 24, 2014
Dear City Attorney Ms. Whitfield,
Thank you for your quick response to my e-mail and thank you for your explanation before and during the February 19, 2014 City Commission Meeting. As I stated to you at the time, I did not get your e-mail before the meeting and I did not have sufficient time to read the entire Agreement between the City and ATS. Now I had the time to read the Agreement and I do see the ARTICLES you referred to during the meeting.
To memorialize the essence of your comments let me see if I remember them correctly. Of course, if you remember differently, please let me know.
You told me that ARTICLE 1, TERM of the Agreement reads “the term of this Agreement be five (5) years and shall begin on the date immediately following conclusion of warning period”. That is the reason the Agreement shall not terminate until December of 2014. You are absolutely correct but you did not tell me about the “however” in the clause, the second part of ARTICLE 1.
The second part of the TERM Section reads “if the term of this Agreement extends beyond a single fiscal year of CITY, the continuation of this Agreement beyond the end of any fiscal year shall be subject to both the appropriation and the availability of funds in accordance with Florida law”The language indicates to me that on less the City Commission budgets funds in the next fiscal year the Agreement is terminated at the end of this fiscal year, maybe earlier if no funds are available. No mention of the City’s obligation to pay ATS any “unamortized amounts invested”.
I mentioned in my comments ARTICLE 7, TERMINATION, Section 7.3, the CITY’s right to terminate the Agreement for “convenience”.
Part 1 of the Section 7.3 reads “In the event this Agreement is terminated for convenience, VENDOR shall be paid for any services properly performed under the Agreement through the termination date specified in the written notice of termination. I agree, the VENDOR should be paid for services already performed.
Part 2 of Section 7.3 reads “VENDOR acknowledges and agrees that it has received good, valuable and sufficient consideration from CITY, the receipt and adequacy of which are, hereby acknowledged by VENDOR, for CITY’s right to terminate this Agreement for convenience”This tells me that the VENDOR has received sufficient consideration from the City to cancel for “convenience” at any time. No mention of the City’s obligation to pay ATS any “unamortized amounts invested”.
ATS may argue for “unamortized amount invested” in ARTICLE 7, TERMINATION, Section 7.5. In my opinion, this Section is very poorly worded, ambiguous and unconscionably one sided favoring ATS.
 “Any termination of this agreement by the City shall be without any liability or damages to ATS, except if the Agreement is terminated pursuant to 7.1 above the City shall pay ATS the unamortized amount invested by ATS in the program at the date of termination by the City”. At a minimum, a comma should have been placed between “above and the City” to make the Section easier to read.
What does this above sentence say? The City pays the entire 5 years worth of payments no matter what? Does the City have any contemporary documentation as to the “amortized amount invested” or ATS will give it to the City now?
I cannot understand how the City’s law department “signed off” on the cause and I do not believe our City Commission was made aware of this cause prior to approving the Agreement. Had the City Commission decided to cancel the Agreement one month into the 60 month contract, the City would have been required to pay close to $750,000 to ATS? Am I wrong to assume this?
In my opinion there are sufficient questions concerning this Agreement and a significant amount of money demanded by ATS to hire an outside counsel to advise the City as to the proper course to follow.
You stated that the City Manager has the information as to the dates of grace period and start of the Agreement. She also has documents as to the amount invested by ATS and an amortization schedule of amount invested by ATS. I will ask her for that information.
I hope you will find the time to correct me where I am wrong because I do not want disseminate partial or incorrect information.
Sincerely, 
Csaba Kulin


--- lwhitfield@hallandalebeachfl.gov wrote:

From: "Whitfield, Lynn"
To: "ckulin Bill Julian, "Lazarow, Michele"  "Lewy, Alexander" , Commissioner Anthony Sanders
CC: "Miller C., Renee" , "Rafols, Nydia M"
Subject: RE: Red Light Camera Contract
Date: Wed, 19 Feb 2014 23:01:30 +0000
Mr. Kulin
If you look at the contract, the effective date is not until after the expiration of the warning period.  The warning period did not begin until after the cameras and system were installed which was not immediately after the contract was signed.  With the installation of the cameras and the 90 day warning period the contract did not become effective until December 2009. 


V. Lynn Whitfield
City Attorney
AV Preeminent ® rated, the highest rating by Martindale-Hubbell
AV Preeminent® is a registered certification mark of Reed Elsevier Properties, Inc.
Used under in accordance with the Martindale-Hubbell certification procedures, standards
And policies.
Description: Description: Description: cid:image003.png@01CDF989.5FBEFBC0Description: Leap Logo


From: Csaba Kulin
Sent: Wednesday, February 19, 2014 5:16 PM
To: Billy Julian; Lazarow, Michele; Lewy, Alexander; Commissioner Anthony Sanders
Cc: Whitfield, Lynn; Miller C., Renee; Rafols, Nydia M
Subject: Red Light Camera Contract


Dear Commissioners,


In the short time I had to look over the ATS contract it seems to me that the City entered into a 5 year contract in 2009 with ATS.
ATS signed the Contract February 24, 2009 and the City signed the Contract March 5, 2009.


You can find the signatures on pages 19 and 20 of the Contract.


On less the City signed a 2 year option, the contact is just about expired.


I hope you have time to confirm my findings by tonight's meeting.




Csaba Kulin







---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, Jan 25, 2014 at 2:24 PM
Subject: re Sun-Sentinel's incomplete story re red-light cameras getting the boot in Hallandale Beach -just another example of their shallow reporting missing-the-mark 

Would've been nice if the Sun-Sentinel, for a change -FOR ONCE- actually focused on the myriad reasons why HB citizens have been calling for RLC to go for years, including an honest accounting of the the history of Mayor Cooper, City Hall and HBPD consciously deciding NOT to share public info on traffic accidents so that citizens could actually see where largest number of accidents occurred.

Once again, when presented with a story on a silver platter about a dysfunctional HB story that cried out for some genuine depth in it, the Sun-Sentinel went for the bury-'em-with-quotes 
approach that left HB's unique perspective completely unexplored, and has instead left objective observers just as confused as to why this happened here instead of happening in another city.
How can they bring the word trend into the story without ever explaining how it all happened?
What would those common components in other cities be that could make it happen elsewhere?
They don't say.
Until that paper is sold and new management and reporters are there, that paper 
is an afterthought when it comes to local news and political coverage.

No mention at all of the city starting a RLC program before the state authorized one, and with so little attention to detail by the City, HBPD or then-City Attorney David Jove that required warning signs were actually obscured from the public driving by, as I noted at the time with photos connecting-the-dots.
All these years later, there's still ZERO warning signs on either east-bound or west-bound 
Hallandale Beach Blvd. approaching U.S.-1

Those required warning signs on the median near NW 10th Terrace were NOT there when the 
city started their program or when the state did but much later.
I know because I have the photos that show that lack of attention to detail at the 
time, and most of you have already seen them.

They didn't want to do that because they knew that if the facts came out, they'd be hard-pressed to explain why they were so insistent on placing cameras in places that'd clearly generate less REVENUE, including the illegal right-hand turn money they were getting hand-over-fist at the beginning that got the city so much negative media coverage across the state.

South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Red-light cameras kicked to curb - Hallandale yanks them, but will others follow?

Monday, July 23, 2012

Follow the money? Okay, here it is: $2,000 on page 3 of Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper's most-recently filed Treasurer's Report is from American Traffic Solutions-related entities who support installation of Red-Light Cameras. Like what she railroaded thru in HB. What are friends for, after all?; @MayorCooper

Photo above from my February 23, 2011 post
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/roger-lohses-amazing-story-on-red-light.html

Per my earlier post this morning, What's worse? The galling audacity of the feckless Sun-Sentinel giving free space to thoroughly-mendacious Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper, 16 weeks before the election, or her stridently self-serving lies re Red-Light cameras in Hallandale Beach, which she and her Rubber Stamp Crew rammed thru to gain more revenue for the city? American Traffic Solutions could NOT be any happier for the free plug, and will no doubt have a campaign check to Cooper on its way soon -if it's not there already; @MayorCooper
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/whats-worse-galling-audacity-of.html 
I forgot to show this important link earlier.

It's from page 3 of Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper's most recently filed Treasurer's Report, which lists campaign contributions, and shows $2,000 from American Traffic Solutions-related individuals and entities.
http://www.hallandalebeach.org/DocumentView.aspx?DID=2492

And within ten days of filing that Treasurer's Report, she was able to shill for ATS in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, even without mentioning their name, since everyone who's paying close attention to the issue knows exactly who's doing what.
She is such a good friend to ATS!

Just imagine how gleeful the mayor must've been after being contacted by the newspaper, knowing that the newspaper was going to give her space to not only pat herself on the back, one of her favorite things to do, but to also allow her to blow a kiss to a financial contributor of hers.

Do you think that she mentioned THAT salient fact to the newspaper?
I don't, rather I think she laughed at being able to get away with it.

No wonder she wants her many friends in the Florida League of Cities, which she has recently headed, to do exactly what she and Hallandale Beach does, regardless of what taxpayers or the facts show.
It pays to.
At least for egotistical despots like her.

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Gridlocked traffic? Bad drivers? Bad roads? Hallandale Beach has got that covered -and preserved on Google Maps! And next-door Aventura remains gridlock city, too!


View Larger Map

U.S.-1/S. Federal Highway & S.E. 5th Street, Hallandale Beach, FL as seen by Google Street View, April 2011. Looking west from Village at Gulfstream Park. For those of you who live far from me, there's no traffic light there, rather it's just traffic going in four different directions all at the same time! SNAFU!

The image above is of the intersection directly in front of Hallandale Beach City Hall, to the upper right, and the Main Post Office to the left,
(Correct, the Post Office whose parking lot was pitch-black at night for over an entire year,)
How perfect is this image for describing what things are really like here in chaotic S.E. Broward County, where someplace four miles away can take 20 minutes to get to?

From my perspective, the only thing that's really missing above are the cars making the illegal left-hand turns south onto U.S.-1 from The Village at Gulfstream Park retail complex -near Crate & Barrel, Container Store, Pottery Barn and West Elm- which I observe a few times a day, but which the HB Police, located across the street next to City Hall, never EVER notice.

Even though the vast majority of the thousands of seasonal French-Canadian residents this area gets every Fall and Winter have long since started making their trek back to Québec and Ontario, in the late afternoon here, there is still often gridlocked traffic on U.S.-1/Federal Highway/Biscayne Blvd. from Hallandale Beach Blvd. all the way south to the Ives Dairy/N.E. 203rd Street exits in Aventura, a few blocks south of Aventura Hospital, a place that as many of you know, I have become all-too-familiar with over the past two years.

That's a distance of just barely below three miles, one I frequently walk when the weather is nice and I'm going to catch a movie or do something at the nearby Aventura Mall, but it's often at least a 15 minute drive, since there is no other way available to get to that part of HB because of the Atlantic Intercoastal Waterway and Gulfstream Park.

(Most smart people in Aventura needing to get to I-95 North know that to beat the impossible traffic on Ives Dairy, it's much quicker and less-stressful to simply make a left on N.E. 208th Str. and catch E. Dixie Highway north -parallel to the FEC Railroad tracks- which becomes S.E.1st Ave. in HB, then hang a left across the RR tracks at County Line Road (N.E. 215th Street/S.W. 11th Street) and then take it to S.W. 8th Ave., turn right and go north, coming come out on Hallandale Beach Blvd., with 1-95 a half-mile to your left.)

These physical and geographical hindrances to easier and more common sense driving in this crowded area are made worse by the inadequate and myopic planning by the City of Hallandale Beach the past 45 years, as I'll be discussing in much more detail soon, since there has not been a single new road going north-south or east-west in that area to relieve the stress on U.S.-1 in the past forty-five years.

This is made all the worse by the deal struck years ago by the officials of Gulfstream Park with the City of Aventura -and the silence of FDOT- to NOT create a road extending N.E. 213th Street west from U.S.-1 to E. Dixie Highway, despite plenty of space to do so, to get traffic onto secondary roads with no residents.
Gulfstream's deal with the City of Aventura forces all north-bound cars to pass Gulfstream Park.

It's no mystery why there's gridlock around here, since there's plenty of blame to go around.



Elsewhere in the state, over four hours north of us, we have news about the the logical result of living in Florida for too long: Bad Florida drivers, Bad Florida gridlock and Bad Florida roads equals...VERY BAD Judgement

Cops: Girl's Kin Towed Her Toy Car Behind SUV. Drunken Florida grandparents busted for child cruelty
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/grandchild-towed-behind-suv-578912

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

South Florida Needs to Emulate Pembroke Pines Approach re Roads/Traffic: ACTION!

My comments follow the article.
___________________________________
www.sun-sentinel.com/community/news/pembroke_pines/sfl-flbpines12xxsbdec16,0,1462881.story
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Pembroke Pines rebuilding I-75 ramps at Pines Boulevard
Lanes to be closed weekends, nights; work to go on 14 months
By Michael Turnbell
December 16, 2008

Pembroke Pines
When the Pines Boulevard interchange at Interstate 75 opened in 1985, the area was considered out in the boondocks.

The Pines interchange, like others along I-75, was built to rural standards with high-speed curves and little space for merging onto the connecting road.

But what worked then doesn't hold up under today's traffic-choking volumes.

That's why the city is replacing the interchange's wide, curving ramps with straight ramps — one exit for both eastbound and westbound traffic — that join Pines Boulevard at right angles similar to exits on Interstate 95 in south Broward County.

"When you come off 75, everybody's moving at a high speed and then they have to quickly merge over to the left onto Pines," said Pembroke Pines Mayor Frank Ortis. "It's a huge safety issue."

The new ramps will create two, four-way intersections on each side of the overpass and lead drivers exiting I-75 to a traffic light, instead of directly onto Pines Boulevard.

Four new traffic signals are planned for Pines Boulevard — two at the new exit and entry ramps and two at 145th and 148th avenues, which are the entrances to new shopping centers on the east and west sides of I-75.

On the east side, drivers headed in and out of the new Shops of Pembroke Gardens, built by Duke Realty Corp. of Cincinnati, are using a temporary signal at Pines at 145th.

On the west side, developer KRG/CREC of Indianapolis can't open Cobblestone Plaza shopping center until the traffic signal at Pines Boulevard and 148th is installed.

Ortis said he has asked the state to activate the 148th Avenue signal ahead of the project's January 2010 completion.
Drivers can expect lanes and ramps to be closed at night and on weekends.

"We are asking motorists to be patient while we reconfigure the interchange during the next 14 months," said city engineer Joe McLaughlin said.

Although Pines Boulevard is a state road, the city agreed last year to take over the job from the Florida Department of Transportation to accelerate the road work.

The city is paying for the $11 million project upfront. The state will reimburse the city in 2012, when it originally expected to have funds available to do the work. Developers on both sides of I-75 are contributing $2.6 million plus covering any cost overruns.

Michael Turnbell can be reached at mturnbell@sunsentinel.com, 954-356-4155 or 561-243-6550.
-----------------------------------------------------
I loved when this first opened up because going north on the new I-75 on my way back up to Chicago/Evanston, after coming back home for the holidays down here (at my mother's then-place near The Falls, at S. Dixie Highway and S.W. 136th Street, once you got up towards then-western Pines, you could really, really FLY!!!

The only place in South Florida where that was true.

It was very similar at the time to parts of I-75 South, south of Tampa-St. Pete going towards Port Charlotte, where I'd always make a pit-stop on my trips south and visit a friend, who had already become a popular high school English teacher in his first job.
That was back when Charlotte County was the fastest-growing county in the whole country, full of Midwestern transplants, can-do enthusiasm and Cubs and Reds ball caps.

Miles and miles of wide roads with no cars on them!
Especially at night!!!

Those roads were so much fun to ride.

Sometimes, you wouldn't see another car for 2-3 miles, and when you did, they were going at least 80 or so.

And naturally, almost without exception, at least once before you got to Palm Beach County, you'd hear the great beginning storm percussion of Christopher Cross' Ride Like the Wind, so you'd have no choice but to turn up the volume and sing along, especially the iconic Michael McDonald back-up vocals. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pt9wULOlc6o

I was born the son of a lawless man.
Always spoke my mind with a gun in my hand.
Lived nine lives
gunned down ten.
Gonna ride like the wind.

And I got such a long way to go.
To make it to the border of Mexico.
So I'll ride like the wind.
Ride like the wind.
Ride like the wind.


Our little Broward mini-Autobahn!
How I do miss it!

In the past 20 years, the closest thing I've experienced to that kind of fun driving, especially after being in the cramped Washington, D.C. area, where speed is just an abstract idea, was heading west on I-66 on Fall Sunday afternoons when the Redskins weren't playing, and my friends and I would head out to the bucolic hills and mountains of West Virginia for the day.

We'd get up early Sunday morning and after the prerequisite stop at the IHOP or Denny's and back on the road by 8 a.m., as long as we studiously avoided the areas known for attracting the "brunch crowd" or "horse crowd" going west, we were set for a nice steady speed with music to relax and just unwind.
(That's one of the things that I miss the most about being down here, surrounded by flat land and traffic -that tangible sense of movement with winding hills )

And coming back to Arlington, with the sun going down over the hills and the foliage whizzing past us, and starting to pick up WBZ-Boston or WCBS-New York on our car radio around 7 p.m., well, it was easy to forget for a while what sort of new mini-crisis would greet us the following day, the big Beltway news story which you'd have to have an informed opinion on.

I especially recommend that you consider the comments below of Pembroke Pines Commissioner Angelo Castillo, within the context of his longer comments:

"...Implementing better traffic management solutions citywide continues to be a top priority for all of us at City Hall. I think it's important to note that while other cities talk about traffic, we in Pines are actually doing things to make things better. That's what our residents demand -- action, not talk...."

That guy is 100% right.

Reader comments at:
http://www.topix.net/forum/source/south-florida-sun-sentinel/TLMR9QIRO7CL7VFTE

Monday, July 14, 2008

On a Clear Day, You Can See Forever...


le 14 de juillet 2008
Happy Bastille Day!

"On a clear day, you can see forever..."
True enough from atop La Tour Eiffel en Paris, http://www.tour-eiffel.fr/teiffel/uk/ and especially in one of my all-time favorite films, 1956's Funny Face, strarring Audrey Hepburn, Fred Astaire and Kay Thompson (See http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050419/ for info and http://www.imdb.com/media/rm3499137024/tt0050419 for great photo!)


But as this delicious and interesting post Thursday by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel's Anthony Man on their Broward Politics blog makes clear below, it's also true from atop Broward County Govt.'s HQ at 115 S. Andrews Avenue, Fort Lauderdale.

From interim County Administrator Bertha Henry's office, it's apparently nothing but blue skies -and green lights!

This attitude certainly explains a lot around here!
With friends like this...

Most of today I'll be down at the Circuit Courthouse on Flagler Street at the trial of Norman Braman v. Miami-Dade County, Ciudad de Miami y Los Marlins.
I'd planned on being there Friday, taking some notes and photos for les blogs, but something came up. Given what happened with the delay, I lucked out.

Happy Bastille Day!
Apropos of the French holiday today, over the weekend on FOX Movie Channel, I finally saw the non-musical 1952 film version of Les Misérables, starring Michael Rennie as Jean Valjean and Robert Newton as Inspector Javert. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044907/

Por aujourd'hui, I'm going under my nom de guerre, Laurent.

"On a clear day, you can see forever..."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rSA0Va-xTQ Barbra Streisand at her best!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066181/

La Babs est magnifique!!!
_________________________
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Broward Politics blog
July 10, 2008

Something to think about when you're stuck at a traffic light in Broward County: the government believes the signals are timed
Posted by Anthony Man at 10:15 AM

Broward County has a $3.5 billion annual budget. But it hasn't come up with the dough to synchronize the traffic lights, so taxpayers can save time, gasoline, and wear and tear on their cars.
The reason, perhaps, is that at the top of Broward government, it isn't seen as an issue. The view from county government headquarters is that the lights are synchronized.
It just doesn't seem that way to drivers who travel at the speed limit along many major streets and get stuck at light after light even when there is hardly any other traffic around.