It only takes one extra car
Went to the gym and breakfast this morning and even popped into Starbucks all before 8:30 am today and you know what? There were too many cars on the street. Usually there are none.
Little by little I am seeing what the overbuilding in the Grove is doing. We don't realize and we say the infrastructure can handle the extra people, but in all honesty, it just takes one extra car to ruin your day, this morning there was more than one, all at different times.
For instance, I was walking from Starbucks at CocoWalk to the Bookstore at 7:30 am and even then there was an altercation, as I was crossing Virginia Street, a lady almost drove into me with her car, ignoring the stop sign. When I knocked on her trunk (after the fact) to say "Hey! WTF are you doing." she stopped the car and sat on the horn, just sat on the horn for maybe 10 seconds. I walked up to her window and she sat on the horn again. Obnoxious bitch. I felt like kicking the car, but I didn't, I just walked away shaking my head. Welcome to the new Grove. In the past, I would have known her and I would have known every car and person that went by. And she would have stopped her car to say hello, or to just obey the law and be polite and let me walk by. Now it's not like that.
Another altercation was when a guy came out from Seminole Boat Ramp, ignoring the red light and almost hit me on South Bayhore Drive. Another was near Kennedy Park and another was in my own neighborhood where I had to wait quite awhile to exit the street onto South Bayshore Drive; this is at 7:30 am mind you. All of this happened before 8:30 am. This is not helping me with Progressive Insurance and that meter I have plugged into my car, they don't like short stops, they call it a Snapshot and "hard brakes" is not a good thing, but I don't think they realize that most if not all of the hard breaks is me trying to avoid an accident, not me causing one.
Little by little I am seeing what the overbuilding in the Grove is doing. We don't realize and we say the infrastructure can handle the extra people, but in all honesty, it just takes one extra car to ruin your day, this morning there was more than one, all at different times.
For instance, I was walking from Starbucks at CocoWalk to the Bookstore at 7:30 am and even then there was an altercation, as I was crossing Virginia Street, a lady almost drove into me with her car, ignoring the stop sign. When I knocked on her trunk (after the fact) to say "Hey! WTF are you doing." she stopped the car and sat on the horn, just sat on the horn for maybe 10 seconds. I walked up to her window and she sat on the horn again. Obnoxious bitch. I felt like kicking the car, but I didn't, I just walked away shaking my head. Welcome to the new Grove. In the past, I would have known her and I would have known every car and person that went by. And she would have stopped her car to say hello, or to just obey the law and be polite and let me walk by. Now it's not like that.
Another altercation was when a guy came out from Seminole Boat Ramp, ignoring the red light and almost hit me on South Bayhore Drive. Another was near Kennedy Park and another was in my own neighborhood where I had to wait quite awhile to exit the street onto South Bayshore Drive; this is at 7:30 am mind you. All of this happened before 8:30 am. This is not helping me with Progressive Insurance and that meter I have plugged into my car, they don't like short stops, they call it a Snapshot and "hard brakes" is not a good thing, but I don't think they realize that most if not all of the hard breaks is me trying to avoid an accident, not me causing one.
The other day there were long backups on Old Cutler and Main Highway due to construction workers with heavy machinery tearing up houses in order to add more houses. On South Bayshore Drive, early in the mornings, like even today, Saturday, there was a delay because those construction workers working on the new bank building feel that they own the streets and they can delay traffic, yes, even early weekend mornings, to allow for rows of cement trucks to enter and exit the area. And don't even try to use Tigertail near Mary Street most days, because the guys working on the bank lot have decided to make that there space and they control the traffic there. Be prepared to wait.
And when did 27th Avenue get so busy? I've almost been killed by speeding drivers more than once. That peanut circle is a nightmare and needs traffic lights. Imagine this when those new condos open up and the new mall on the water is built. Not good.
The Grove is not a small village anymore, all thanks to greed. I shudder to think what life will be like when all these new condos are done. More traffic and congestion and it only takes one extra car to do that.
And when did 27th Avenue get so busy? I've almost been killed by speeding drivers more than once. That peanut circle is a nightmare and needs traffic lights. Imagine this when those new condos open up and the new mall on the water is built. Not good.
The Grove is not a small village anymore, all thanks to greed. I shudder to think what life will be like when all these new condos are done. More traffic and congestion and it only takes one extra car to do that.
posted by Tom Falco at 8:30 AM
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15 Comments:
Yep. Well said.
Sounds like you had a rough morning and it is probably not going to get any better.
Ransom Everglades private school recently paid big bucks to purchase the property next door. Some Grovites are pleased that it did not go to a developer that would request a permit to subdivide the land for several McMansions. But the reality is that they bought the property to expand their campus, which will help them attracted more students and generate more revenue. The unintended consequence is that it will also create much more traffic congestion on Main Highway, when the kids are being dropped off and picked up, with an even longer line of SUV's down the street blocking the road.
And the (dreaded) theater renovation? Add more cars and buses....
The "Grove" hasn't been the "Grove" since the early 1980's, when all of the New Yorkers moved down here after cashing out on their Manhattan condos. I remember standing in line at the Grove Post Office listening to a person with a heavy New York accent complain about all of the kids and Cocowalk. At that point, I knew it was over.
I have reached to the conclusion that you have to leave. You don't like it here anymore!
sorry you had such a rough day. I agree that traffic is worse, but 27th Ave has always been a pain. I am hoping that most of the condos will be sold to foreign investors, so they wil only be here part-time.
We Grovites are all feeling the PAIN of losing our ambiance & precious little Coconut Grove.
GREED is the killer, but it is everywhere & everyone wants to live in the GROVE....if they can afford it.....
Coconut Grove should have become a CITY a LONG TIME AGO.....
I think lowering the speed limit across Coconut Grove to 25MPH is essential due to the traffic caused by the obvious unbridled construction and the ensuing traffic. City of Edinburgh in Scotland recently instituted a 30Km/h and Paris too, all across Europe they have lowered speed limits in downtown and residential areas for safety reasons. German town of Buxtehude was in forefront of lowering speed limits in urban pedestrian populated areas. According to a 1997 British Department of Transport report titled "Killing Speed and Saving Lives", a pedestrian hit by a motor vehicle has a 5 percent chance of dying if the vehicle is moving at 32 km/h. At 48 km/h (30 mph) the risk of death jumps to 45 percent, and at 64 km/h (40 mph) the risk of death jumps to a staggering 85 percent. Grow up Miami.
The peanut is awful. You can idle in traffic on Tigertail at the peanut while 10 -15 cars fly up and down 27th Avenue. They don't yield for vehicles that arrived at the peanut before them.
It often seems like drivers don't even see the Tigertail Avenue vehicles because the peanut is so large.
We've watched drivers blare on their horn at trucks making their daily deliveries, cars double park without using lights to pick up take-out food and flick off drivers that attempt to drive around them.
STOP signs are treated as suggestions and cross walks - especially the South Bayshore Drive at Fresh Market is a constant game of chicken.
All that you write anon 11:10 can fall as normal under human nature. Who's to say it's good or it's bad, this human nature thing! Having said that my wife gets to visit many cities throughout the world and she now says that Miami is full of rude and offensive mentalities compared to say, Colorado, Spain, England or France. NOW, why is that?
I'm not too worried about traffic from the new condos. All the owners will be in S America in their daily houses and the only new traffic will be condo staff.
"The peanut is awful. You can idle in traffic on Tigertail at the peanut while 10 -15 cars fly up and down 27th Avenue. They don't yield for vehicles that arrived at the peanut before them. "
Those within the peanut, and traffic circles for that matter, have the right of way. I take it you're one of those drivers that stops inside of traffic circles?
@Charlie, I'm so glad that someone said that! YES, drivers within the circle have right of way!!
Of course drivers inside the peanut have the right of way indicated by four yield signs.
1st, if you need a new vehicle just drive in the peanut for less than 3/5 minutes until some rude driver fails to yield and slam into them, presto, new vehicle. 2'd-ly, I've used the peanut daily since it opened. No one but me seems to use a turn signal after entering the peanut. Note that at each exit the person in the peanut appears to be turning at each exit, but that only because of a slight turn of the road to each exit, but their intended route is at another location. The 1st accident, if the drivers fail to move their vehicles out of the travel lane will result in a massive traffic jam.
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