The anticipated environmental impact of an elevated skyway, extending between 7 and 8 miles in length through Broward County, is particularly disturbing for the following environmental reasons:

Ignoring the Challenges of Green Transportation Needs- In an era when reducing greenhouse gasses is of prime concern, building more lanes and ignoring mass transit is retrograde thinking. Careful analysis of the State's plans for 595 show the mass transit corridor under the planned elevated portion of the highway is lacking in detail and short on substance. (Check out I-595.com and FDOT's discussion of the "envelope" under the skyway...click here and see "Transit Envelope" at the bottom of the page). Instead of promoting a mass transit "envelope" which some day might, or might not, support mass transit in the form of light rail or buses, Florida should use the I-595 corridor as an example to the nation of the first leg of an intra-county east-west energy efficient mass transit solution.

 

Building more and elevated lanes will encourage people to continue using their motor vehicles and bypass mass transit. While FDOT has a responsibility to move traffic, it also has a moral duty to move people with efficient and clean solutions that are forward thinking and meet the environmental challenges we can no longer push off to future decades. Building an elevated highway that might make room later for a train, monorail or other mass mover system is repeating the mistakes of the past.

I-595 should be expanded with more lanes, at grade (ground) level, but with mass transit, in the form of highly efficient high speed luxury bus solution or light rail component on State Road 84, connecting with Tri-Rail and eventually a commuter system on the FEC tracks up and down the coast of Southeast Florida.

We do not reduce greenhouse gas emissions by building more and more lanes and roads without changing the transportation infrastructure. Florida starts to contain future pollution by creating transportation systems which highlight better alternatives to miles and miles of gridlocked vehicular traffic.

 

Single occupancy vehicle traffic is the most inefficient method of transportation. "Premium transit" which is designed to preserve the physical and social environment along the 595 corridor was suggested by the Central Broward East-West Traffic Analysis report, completed in March, 2005. See the report here. The environmental objectives of that report call for selection of "an alternative that has maximum environmental benefit" such as the greatest reduction in greenhouse gas and ozone precursor emissions. Whether you believe global warming is induced by human activity or not, we all have a responsibility to do what we can, especially in Florida, to reduce pollution which contributes to climate change.

I-595 is the right place to start making smart highways.

 

We believe adding elevated lanes without a specific mass transit plan is wrong, and repeats the mistakes of the past. A mass transit corridor using light rail or energy efficient buses should be the centerpiece of any 595 improvement program, not just an incidental possibility and a vague promise.

 

Noise Pollution- While the Florida Department of Transportation plans sound barrier walls along the borders of residential communities and 595, the walls will do nothing to cut down on the increased noise created by the elevated roadway.

Increased traffic equates to more noise. Elevated traffic equals greater noise over a larger geographic area. As large trucks and busses drive 30 to 50 or more feet over the Interstate (which at major road crossings such as University Drive is already elevated) noise pollution will affect greater surrounding areas. The construction of sound barriers at ground level will not mute or reduce the sound for a large swath of properties in the City of Plantation and the Town of Davie.

 

Critics of those who live close to the Interstate frequently assert "they should have known." It is contended that by renting or purchasing homes and apartments near 595, some of those who are complaining were on notice the road would expand, and therefore additional noise would result.

Clearly, expansion at ground (grade) level could be anticipated, but no one could have reasonably expected a double-decker highway running through, and above, the heart of Broward County that would render sound barrier walls meaningless.

 

We agree with the expansion of the roadway, at grade level, with real and immediate mass transit solutions. Such a design was already proposed by FDOT, without the elevated toll way. It could be modified to run on the north side of the interstate. That alternative design would contain the additional sound created by additional lanes by using barrier walls which would be more effective, and it would incorporate a new mass transit solution that starts to put into place a 21st century east-west solution.

Obtain flyers from 595Alert.org. Click here.

New: The Danger of "Included Traffic" and the need to get the data right. Click here.

 

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