Highway to Hell

The smell of the burning pavement on a hot summers day, the feel of the sun's rays hitting you, and the damned sound of car horns in bumper to bumper traffic! Welcome to Miami, the city that is still in development since 2003 and has caused traffic year after year.

Now Miami is a city that it's population has been booming for years as it is the melting pot of the country, or how some locals say, "Where the old come to die" so it would make sense to renovate and to expand highways and older buildings.

As a local it not only makes everything better but it hurts us as well, the amount of traffic hitting us on a daily basis is a real weekend killer when it takes an hour and a half just to pass the flagler exit on a Saturday.

Or even worse for the students that go to the other campuses in the downtown area, the commute is the biggest pain.

This construction will benegit us one day, but to be in progress for almost 12 is a pain for us locals.

I-95 Express Lanes

If you use the express lanes on I-95, prepare to pay way more. Very soon you may end up paying twice, or even three times, what you pay not to drive in Miami-Dade and Broward county. The automated system is built to try and keep traffic moving.If there are too many cars the toll climbs up, hopefully discouraging drivers from entering the lanes.

If lanes are empty, the price goes down. At $10.50, the 95 express toll is one of the highest, if not the highest in the country. Perhaps the high tolls were meant to stop drivers from using the express lanes but in South Florida, the higher they go, the more drivers use it.

If express lanes are the way of the future, drivers will eventually be stuck with the bill. According to FDOT (Florida

Department Of Transportation), since 95 express has rolled out, they have seen both the express and general lanes are

moving faster. It may be hard to imagine that when you're sitting there watching cars whiz by you. Traffic engineers are

quite proud of it. According to them everyone is moving faster than they were, a decade ago.

Tolls Across the Board

"Tolls begin to rise in the heist of what is becoming the beginning of terrible friendship. Apart from all the construction sites, as well as time consuming detours, the state of Florida has decided to include and add on even more tolls being just a few distance within each other.

 This idea has even fluctuated to influence Georgia and North Carolina. Even Canada might join in on all the fun! This is going to get out of hand, especially to all of those drivers that work near the Miami Beach area. Be prepared to save up to $200 or more a month when taking these incoming tolls in Miami.

Forget saving up for the expensive for what already is Miami. All residents working near that area will be working partly just for tolls! 

Here is what two South Florida member had to comment regarding toll rates:

David Sutta comments: 

"How do you keep cars moving?  Use money as a motivator. The system counts how many cars are using the express lanes at any given moment.  If there are too many cars the toll climbs up, hopefully discouraging drivers from entering the lanes.  If the lanes are empty, the price goes down. The program calculates how much the toll should go up or down and for how long.  While the system could do the entire change itself, an engineer still must click a button to approve the change just in case something whacky happens.  Once the change is approved, within seconds the tolls go up.  The engineer looks over to a row of screens to make sure everything went smoothly.  The cameras trained on all the 95 Express signs show the change in tolls has taken place." 

As of November 2014, all cash payers for tolls on 836 and SR-112 were completely eliminated. More tolls are being added as we speak and definitely not for the better. We understand the construction is need for better roads and pavements however these tolls are not going to be temporarily.

Not to add these tolls will also be added in a few short distances away from each other.  The highest toll rate is currently the one on 95, when it reaches $10.50. Sources mention, that this will discourage many drivers to take these roads but in the busy city of Miami - there is no time to loose!

This spring it is expected to extend the lanes all the way to Fort Lauderdale so expect even more coming from these tolls. 

Miami residents as well as tourists will just need to rebuttal and not take these tolls in order for pricing to come down and be eliminated off the streets."

Downtown, Tolls, and You!

My personal woes stem from my first and only semester at the Wolfson campus at downtown Miami. Coming from Okkeechobee to the campus is not a big deal, the way back is nightmarish on both my wallet and my patience.

I recall going through the express lane, the "fast lane" back home and getting charged at least 5 dollars. So it's either get infuriated from the traffic and "save money" or take the fast lane, get charged 5 bucks and get infuriated anyway.

This was in 2013. Fast forward to 2014 and Miami spent 3 billion on more tolls. This was under Gov. Rick Scott's administration.  Construction for the tolls on the 169 mile project spanning from Tampa, Orlando, Jackonville, and Miami will continue through 2021.

The worrying part? Not a single resident has had a vote on the tolls or the money being spent on them.

The tolls are supposedly made for those who want to use them and are about "effectively moving traffic". But what about the lanes that give you no choice but to take them? And what if the express lanes end up costing you as much as just waiting in traffic?

These posts on the /r/Miami subreddit detail how locals view MDX's use of the tolls. Money collected from the tolls is never seen back on the roads for repair. 

Public transportation, an obvious aid to the public is being neglected in favor of more toll-by-plate lanes. Having used the metro rail public transport I can say it has room to grow if the money were to be properly invested. It's not a very pedestrian city as stated by one reddit user to a tourist.

He explains that Miami is a very road heavy city, with a decent but very small Metro transit system. Important areas like Miami Beach have been overlooked in terms of the metro. The farthest it goes to the beach is Government Center which lands in downtown and is still a few miles away. This would leave you to trek by bus to the beach.

With its expansion Miami could become a more, accessible, connected city.The sheer convenience would bring more happy tourists to areas like downtown Miami and if it ever happens, Miami Beach. It's time for Miami to put the money where it needs it, public transportation.