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Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Does Main Highway project really need to happen?

Now that Ken Russell said it, I can admit that I have been feeling that all this street work in the Grove is nonsense. From 27th Avenue to South Bayshore and Main Highway, I feel it is all busy work, or worse, just planned work to line a few pockets. This total makeover of the Grove in every knook and cranny is unbelievable. It has been years since you can just jump in a car (and in many cases even a bicycle) and just go from one end of Coconut Grove to the other. It's been an obstacle course for years. The 27th Avenue project has had so many bumps in the road, make that potholes in the road, it's been made into the construction company's life's work. I'd love to see the overrun and change order costs. Now, change orders, that's where the real money is.

A young guy came up to me in the street, a college student, I think; he asked me about the proposed work for Main Highway, he was concerned. I didn't think college students cared about this stuff, but apparently they do. I guess the total disruption of our Main artery for almost a year is a big issue that people don't want to face.

The county admits that there are no major problems on Main Highway and it really does not need to be dug up and re-piped. It seems that it all started because of the complaint from one business owner who has flooding near his business.  The project could hurt Coconut Grove for a year. There is all this talk of "the new Grove" starting to take root, but this project will stop it all in its tracks. Many of the sidewalks were all just redone (on city owned streets as opposed to county owned streets, like Main Highway), which took a toll on businesses that had to suffer through the dust, dirt and lack of customers and now in the works are Bird Avenue (to be treated just like 27 Avenue, I suspect, the never-ending project) and then South Bayshore Drive. The only flooding I ever see on South Bayshore Drive after a heavy rain is near Kennedy Park in one small area and possibly near 17th Avenue, probably an easy fix that does not entail digging up and redoing a mile of the road, which will again, probably end up being a never-ending project which will affect everything; traffic will be a nightmare, entering and leaving the Grove will be almost non-existent. 

I suspect the only reason for doing these projects it to redo the infrastructure in anticipation of major high rise development, like up and down 27th Avenue and up and down South Bayshore Drive. And as others have pointed out, possibly the Center Grove, where high rise development is imminent. The experts seem to feel that we don't need to dig up every street and sidewalk and incapacitate the Grove for years to come. It's so obvious what is going on. Has any other historic area in the country been re-sidewalked, re-streeted, re-piped and over-built this fast? 

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5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Change orders, juicy RFP's, endless construction. That's where the big money is at.

Have ANY of the candidates for District 2 offered their views on this excellent post, or offered an Investigation as to who, exactly, are the people getting Filthy Rich, illegally, while we deal with traffic and pay their salaries with our taxes?

I didn't think so.

May 27, 2015 12:02 PM  
Blogger Liz said...

The post is brand new. The candidates probably haven't seen it yet. I doubt that any candidate can know the depth of the corruption in our County

May 27, 2015 4:05 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ken Russell's Facebook page indicates that a recent poll shows him "on the heels of Commissioner Sarnoff"s wife" in the election. With a call to action to support his campaign by contributing any amount of money.

Does anyone know which poll his campaign is referring to? How many folks were polled? Who conducted the poll?

May 27, 2015 7:50 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

As you touched on, this is being done for the main purpose of allowing for high rises to be built on 27th, South Bayshore and the 2-3 being proposed right now in center grove. Evidently, the modern founders of the Grove understood it was not meant for high rises, but the new greed that has moved in see a different future, no longer satisfied with knocking down historic old original Miami funky homes that used to be rental properties for the youth & artists that supplied the Grove with it's rich flavor in favor of putting up McMansions for trust fund folk.

May 27, 2015 8:52 PM  
Anonymous gw said...

I must be extra stupid today--I thought Ken Russell was running for Sarnoff's spot and he wrote the letter referred to in this article. So that means that yes, one of the candidates has an idea about the corruption and yes he has seen it since he wrote it.

Reading about the goings on in CG is mindnumbing, to say the least.

May 27, 2015 11:01 PM  

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