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NEWS STORY - DECEMBER 2018
MIAMI EXPRESSWAY EXTENSION PROPOSAL APPROVED BY CITY PLANNERS TO REDUCE TRAFFIC CONGESTION
While tourists flock to Miami every year, residents know that the city’s traffic problem has increasingly gotten worse. A new but controversial proposal wants to help fix that.
The Miami-Dade Expressway Authority (MDX) received approval from city commissioners last month to extend the 836-expressway in order to help alleviate gridlock traffic. The extension would mainly help reduce congestion in the West Kendall area.
West Kendall, a community within the suburb of Kendall, is home to over 50,000 people. In order to reach the rest of the city, residents typically spend anywhere from 30 minutes to over an hour in their cars trying to reach the main highway.
MDX Treasurer Louis V. Martinez, Esq. is optimistic about the extension and said that it is a “game changer” that will give people the options that they deserve on their daily commute.
“Residents who live in West Kendall only have one way to get out,” Martinez said. “At this point, those individuals are limited to one exit which is to go east on whatever street is closest to them towards the Turnpike.”
Martinez grew up in Chicago and attended Loyola University Chicago to study political science. He became an attorney and moved to Miami, where he became a member of MDX’s board of directors.
“The extension will hopefully give individuals the opportunity to drive just a little west to get on the extension, and take them to main highway more quickly,” Martinez said. “The idea is that it will alleviate some of the east-west traffic that goes on the local streets and give individuals more quality time and not be stuck in traffic getting on the highway.”
According to Business Insider, Miami ranked as the fourth worst city in the country for traffic congestion.
The project is estimated to cost nearly $1 billion, but according to MDX, the independent agency in charge of operating and maintaining Florida expressways, the extension would be paid for entirely with the money raised through tolls. Martinez said that it would be self-funded only by people who use the extension, and that there would be no tax increase to pay for it.
Although MDX has conducted polls in West Kendall and claimed that the majority of residents want the extension to be built, not everyone is convinced that the project will actually be beneficial in the long run.
“I think that extending the 836 into Kendall will just cause more congestion and traffic,” said Larry Ortega, who lives in the Brickell neighborhood but often drives through West Kendall. “There’s so many cars on the road right now and we need to work on more long-term solutions, like improving our mass transit system.”
As the Miami Herald reported in October, Transit Alliance Miami gave the city’s Metrorail and Metrobus a D rating, citing that the system is “fragmented, mismanaged and nonsensical.”
“We need more transparency,” Ortega said. “If money is collected for a specific purpose, it needs to be spent on that. We were told that more money would be going towards improving our mass transit system many years ago and I don’t see any changes.”
While Ortega feels that residents have lost confidence in city officials, local lobbyist Tim Riera-Gomez believes that the extension is a step in the right direction.
Gomez works for the firm Floridian Partners, who advocated that the proposal be approved by city commissioners. The firm also represented an individual who owned over 800 acres of farm land located where the extension would be built.
“People opposing the expansion have a flawed argument saying that since MDX raises over $100 million a year, then they can easily pay for a new metro rail,” Gomez said. “It’s not true because the law says MDX can only use the money for expressways.”
Instead of a new train, Gomez offered another solution.
“What can be done, however, is creating some sort of reversible lane that’s used only by buses and cyclists, or something similar to that,” Gomez said.
Another main argument against building the 836-expressway extension is the fear that the surrounding environment would be negatively impacted as a result.
Representatives from one of the leading environmental groups opposing the extension, The Tropical Audubon Society, argued that constructing the extension on Everglades territory “would hurt the land and threaten the county’s water supply.”
The non-profit organization, who prides itself in “conserving and restoring South Florida ecosystems,” voiced their concern that the 14-mile extension would cross into the Urban Development Boundary. The line is an imaginary border that was put into place to help preserve the Everglades from overdevelopment.
“We are the only county in South Florida that has a line that’s supposed to protect the environment,” said Martinez when he explained that other counties in Florida can build as far west as they want. “The line we have now isn’t very consistent and has been violated many times already.”
Martinez also pointed out that some of the environmentalists seem to be hypocritical.
“I find it troubling that many of the environmentalists speaking out against the proposal live in places like Coral Gables,” Martinez said. “They don’t have to worry about traveling from West Kendall to work. They don’t have the right to complain because it doesn’t affect their daily life.
Although commissioners have approved the extension, environmental groups are reaching out to the county and attempting to block the plan until more information is released about the project.