MDX wants to charge as much as eight dollars for a round trip to get through Miami Dade County. Ripoff! Commissioner Suarez asks for a delay in the toll raise until other alternatives are considered. He believes if you aren't offering good transit, it isn't fare fair to penalize regular folks for using their cars.
12 comments:
Excellent. Now how about kick starting a massive public transportation system for Miami. Miami has grown into a major metropolitan are yet the public transportation system and its reach is a joke and a mockery. A serious public transportation plan and its execution will create hundreds of thousands of much needed jobs and will make life here a lot less stressful and a lot more productive.
I hate to say it, but if MDX raises the tolls, it will be like pouring gasoline on a fire of fury and then, perhaps, people will start organizing or joining groups to eliminate them. I dare them to raise those tolls .... let's play Chicken, Chairman
Public transportation requires substantial subsidies from the general funds of the County. As long as we have a County Mayor who is committed to delivering services on the cheap, and a commission who refuses to set taxes at the rates necessary to properly subsidize public transportation, there will be no progress. Elect some people with ovaries who know how to govern.
South Florida wages ranks among the lowest in the nation, we need a good public transportation system and there are Federal funds for that.
Why is MDX still stuck in the 1950's with a sole mission of highways and tolled expressways. It's time we task MDX to take on real transit and not a bunch of lip service like they have been giving with talk of taking over the MIC. Suarez does make some valid points especially where he mentions their cost for maintenance. Its over blown. Glad to see someone putting some skin in the game. Kudos to Commish Suarez.
Yes, my commissioner is right on this!
Just find the word Roads and replace with the word Parks......
Could an MDX model serve this community - possibly. However first we must create elements of this model that provide veto-power, political accountability and goals that actually meet the public's needs. One can go shopping at Robert Poole's Reason Foundation Big Box Store of Ideas and come out with packages to fit Political Rhetoric that justifies agendas, but if you waste tax payer's dollars on things that are not needed ... that's a destruction of wealth, plain and simple folks. If you balloon your debt and expect to finance it on the backs of taxpayers, that's a transfer of wealth. If you target only certain populations in the process, your taxes become weapons of mass destruction. You see, I can go shopping at those Big Box Political Rhetoric stores too! Roll Back Tolls is seeking to build our own brain trust; one that isn't entrenched with special interests, but rather only one interest - focusing on needed infrastructure that will serve our communities and support healthy economic development. Connect with us and sign that damn petition before Tuesday, please. http://www.rollbacktolls.com/
Sea level rise of 2 feet and Hurricane Zeus will settle all of this for us.
a large chunk of any toll collected in Dade County must be put in an escrow account for the purpose of expanding the public transportation system.
I am impressed and heartened that Commissioner Suarez has taken on MDX. I believe MDX governance and procedures need to be thoroughly investigated and communicated to the public - right now they seem to be a government agency in the shadows - no one really knows how they do business. They are under much less scrutiny because they seem to be part of the private sector, but I believe their governance is somehow linked to County or State government. (Does their governance fall under the sunshine rules?) I am not really sure how it all works. I perceive that local "government" ceded control of these roads because then they could pretend that it was not the government "taxing" the residents for public works projects (such as road improvements, public transportation). Instead they can now "blame" the fees on MDX, posing as a non-governmental entity, charging tolls on the roads and saying "if you don't want to pay the toll fees, then don't use this particular road." But as Suarez points out very wisely, we don't really have any alternatives. And our taxpayer dollars paid for the original property those MDX highways are build on. and our taxpayer dollars pay for the roads that feed into the MDX roads, thereby supporting their (private?) business. And don't get me started on the unfairness of pubic works projects like MDX roads where people with less money have to suffer in slow lanes, while those that pay an extra fee get to go fast. Should we start charging people that sit at the front of the bus more? Or maybe have buses or metrorail cars that are cleaner and have their own personal guard and charge more for them? Enough of my rant. But thank you Commissioner Suarez for keeping this conversation going, and for the good analysis that your aides or the County finance office did on your behalf. You brought up some points that I think some people had never thought about.
Dear Mr. Suarez,
Thank you for showing the way to a senseless, useless and disrespectful board members of dade county community.
Sincerely
RCompte
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