I'm a little slow today. I just switched to Sanka. So...have a heart?

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Fucking Miami Dade Expressway Authority



This is in response to a post that White Dade wrote about a perpetual traffic jam that NEVER GOES AWAY. Now, I don't know when he's driving this route, but I've never, EVER in my life gone through the Curve on the 836 West between Le Jeune and Milam Dairy without sitting in traffic. I've lessened the time that I sit there, because I know the secret lanes to be in (merge into far right, cut people off right before Red Road exit) but I've never NOT seen the jam there. And come 3 p.m. the traffic on 836 West backs six miles up to Jackson Memorial Hospital.

So, after reading White Dade's comment about how the "Miami Mystery" has disappeared, I wrote the following comment. For those of you who don't live in or never lived in (or never jaunt out to the Ungodly Reggaeton/Chicharrones de Pollo Hell that is the "Milam-Dairy Warehouse District/Eastern Doral" neighborhood in which I live... sorry about the rant. You'll have no idea what I'm talking about. You can tune out now. For those of you that like to bitch about Miami Traffic (like me!) read on, and feel your blood boil. The WORST part is that these roads have been under MAJOR construction since I've lived in Miami, and the effort has only made the problem WORSE, not better. Beginning now:

What the HELL are you talking about?!

The snarls on 836 West between LeJeune and 72nd are still there in the a.m. They're caused because the left lane ends, and a right lane is formed, that vanishes a mile later, for the Red Road Exit, and then there's the traffic from Red Road merging in. It's still there. Trust me. You must be catching it pre-8:30 when it's not too terrible.

FURTHERMORE, the Miami has fucked things up WORSE, because it used to be that the traffic ended around the Executive Motel. No longer. MDX has created some odd Phantom 826 South lane 2 miles before the exit to 826 North, that you have to merge into when you take Milam Dairy to 836 West to take 826 South, (My office is there, so I have particular expertise in this field) and through which the people who need to take 826 North have to merge. Its really awful.

Lastly... they have opened up a new stretch of 826 South by Coral way, resulting in shifting lanes. It used to be that the bad traffic on 826 South would ease around Calle Ocho. No longer, my friend. Because there's this new stretch of road, and a zig-zag curve in 826 South, People...STOP, because they're clearly confused, and can't navegate a small shift in the road without pulling over and praying. That backs traffic up to a dead stop to 836 West, and onto 836 West, because now there's a bottleneck of two lines of traffic waiting to merge onto 826 South, one in the Flagler Street bypass, and one on the cloverleaf, cutting 836 West down to three lanes in the middle with people having to merge through a line of 826 South bound cars to get to 826 North or to keep going West, which is exascerbated by the Coral Way zig-zag traffic.

It's MADDENING. And I don't know how long it's going to be like this (if it's ever resolved) but all I can say is, from MY experience, all MDX has done is taken a bad problem and made it exponentially worse.

I was actually going to blog about it, but maybe I'll just paste this into my blog, along with my complaint about how people brake on the 826-Miller curve, backing traffic up to Bird.



God, I'm bored.

Well. I can say that I helped make law.

I can now die knowing that I made the world a slightly better place. At least cleaner, and less inconvenient.

When I worked with the City of Miami Beach (in a sector thereof) I did a lot of the base research and rough drafting of an ordinance for Miami Beach to ban excessive handbilling, but remain within the limits of the Constitution.

I suggested places that the Beach should ban the practice, so that it would operate within the law, and still give promoters an opportunity to handbill (except in places where there is little foot traffic, basically making it a fruitless venture.)

Well. It looks like my work is about to become a law! And essentially untouched, but slightly expanded upon. Who fucking knew!?

Text here.

Duck...Duck...Grey.

While venting to my dear friend Lauren today I said to her, "I'd even let you cheesepaw my head. I found what I'm going to tell myself are blonde hairs this morning. I'm going blonde. Blonde. Blonde." (I need to have someone comb through my hair and tell me what's up. Julie?)

Lauren shot me this insightful email:

"Subject: A new version of duck duck goose...

Blonde. Blonde. Blonde. Grey. Sigh."

Sigh indeed.

Utzy? Nudien zich?

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I like this Yiddish Lit advertising series. They're clever.