It had always been my impression – and the stated element of the MDX five year plan – that the proposed ramps exiting the south end of the Don Shula Expressway were going to connect to SW 136th Street as part of the overall SR 836 southwestern extension – which made some kind of sense.
But now, apparently, the plan is to connect the ramps to SW 128th street, which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
First of all, SW 128th Street effectively dead-ends at the entrance to Tamiami Airport at SW 137th avenue, and would require the additional expense to taxpayers of widening SW 128th Street to achieve this quick route to a dead end a few miles down the road – whereas SW 136th Street is already a four lane divided roadway from SW 122nd Avenue all the way west past the southern boundary of Tamiami Airport to SW 157th Avenue.
Second of all, the widening of SW 128th Street jeopardizes the environmentally sensitive Tamiami pinelands preserve on the north side of the street between SW 130th and 134th Avenues. Any attempt to infringe upon this preserve or subject it to additional stress resulting from increased automobile and truck emissions, sound and vibration will result in years of environmental legal warfare (to which I will be an enthusiastic party) that will stall a project that really does need to be undertaken – but eight blocks further south.
Third of all, if the object is to relieve congestion at the SW120th Street and SW 152nd Street interchanges of HEFT, what is the point of constructing a new exit a mere eight blocks to the south of 120th Street that will have almost no impact on the 152nd street interchange? Why create congestion on 137th Avenue between SW 136th Street and 128th Street, and especially on SW 136th Street as eastbound traffic from Country Walk and other local developments piles up waiting to turn left at the 137th Avenue intersection to go north and access eastbound SW 128th Street – and then reverses the congestion in the evening as westbound traffic queues up to turn left at the airport gate dead end to go south on 137th avenue thence to go west again on 136th Street? SW 137th Avenue is congested enough already without creating a new bottleneck there. You’re re-inventing the wheel here, and badly at that.
Finally, what sense does it make to connect this proposed exit to the Shula Expressway and not to HEFT as well if the object is to relieve congestion at the SW 120th and 152nd Street interchanges with the Turnpike? It may be that the Turnpike Authority has its own plans to link up with these ramps but nothing in your notification states that it does. Not to do so would be just plain stupid.
The original plan to extend the Shula ramps southward to connect with SW 136th Street made MUCH more sense. This new plan to connect to SW 128th Street just doesn’t do the job it’s meant to do on any level. There will be both taxpayer and environmental opposition to it and needless delay. Scrap it and go back to the original plan to connect to SW 136th Street.
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