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Heading north on Florida’s Turnpike anywhere from Florida City to Palmetto Bay after sunrise isn’t just a soul-crushing odyssey through automotive purgatory, it is also a road-rage nightmare waiting to happen. As the merciless Florida sun climbs higher in the sky, thousands of trapped commuters inch forward in a metal march that seemingly extends into infinity.
Bumper-to-bumper traffic is selling the experience short. It’s a claustrophobic, exhaust-choked parade where the speedometer rarely exceeds single digits and your car’s air conditioning system fights a losing battle against both the heat and your rising blood pressure.
Things have gotten so bad that drivers are prepping for Dante’s 10th ring of hell by packing breakfast, lunch, snacks, and water. Hydration is essential, after all, when you’re aging visibly during a commute that should take minutes but instead consumes half your waking hours.
So, I have a proposition for County Commissioners and the leaders of the Miami Dade Beacon Council and Chamber of Commerce. If you can drive yourself from Florida City to Downtown Miami after 7 a.m. in less than 2 hours—a distance that should take 45 minutes with reasonable traffic flow—then I’ve got a hot dog, drink and fries at my cost at Arbetter’s Hot Dogs waiting for you. It’s a simple challenge that highlights an impossible situation. While you’re at it, try making that journey on public transportation and prepare to easily add an hour to your expedition.
What the gridlock speaks to is the need for more jobs based in South Dade. Amazon’s new facility that employs 1,000 residents in a facility the size of 17 football fields isn’t enough. It’s not enough that construction has begun on part of a $1.5 billion mixed-use project called Southplace City Center that will generate hundreds of new jobs where Cutler Bay’s Southland Mall stagnates today.
These developments, while welcome, are mere drops in an ocean of need. The economic geography of Miami-Dade County remains painfully imbalanced, with employment centers concentrated far from where affordable housing exists.
Yes, lots of housing is being built, but all these people are all driving somewhere else to work and taking hours to do it. How can you live your best life while behind the wheel driving 2-feet an hour, watching your dashboard clock mock your imprisonment, listening to the same traffic report that offers no hope of relief? Your car becomes a rolling prison cell, with only a game of counting brake lights and concrete barriers to pass the time. It’s ridiculous, Miami-Dade!
The human cost is staggering. Families barely see each other. Parents miss their kids’ bedtimes. Marriages strain under the pressure of exhausted partners with nothing left to give after battle-weary commutes. The environmental impact is equally grim—thousands of idling vehicles pumping tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere while going nowhere.
Until Miami-Dade develops a comprehensive solution that creates more employment centers in South Dade, the Turnpike will remain what it is today: a linear parking lot where South Floridians watch their lives tick away one excruciating.
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