Transit Miami

It’s nice to be back in Miami, albeit for just a couple of days. I’ve kept my opinions on the recent elections as quiet as possible but hope that all my readers took it upon themselves to vote on Tuesday, I did. I’m fairly pleased with most of the results except for a particular Florida amendment which passed; number three. You know the one which will allegedly “protect” our state constitution by making amendments pass by a 60% margin rather than the typical majority. What exactly are we protecting the constitution from? The opinion of a clear majority? Floridians have yet to realize the serious implications which come with the passing of this law. It’s a huge win for big businesses in Florida and huge loss for the rest of us. With 58% of the people voting in favor of it, I wish its own rules had been applied to the amendment.

While I’m at it, we also fumbled in voting in favor of wasting millions of dollars on tobacco education. It’s been proven that some of the anti-smoking efforts of this new campaign are a completely ineffective. Now, I’m in favor of educating people on the health risks of smoking, but, there’s only so much intervening we’ll be able to achieve successfully with this new program.

Nationally, it’s interesting to see that Americans have voted for a whopping 50+ Billion dollars of bond initiatives to improve our floundering and neglected infrastructure. Across the nation, people are looking to improve public spaces and facilities, just so long as the improvements didn’t come in the form of an additional tax. Meanwhile, Broward residents rightfully rejected a proposed transit tax which would have effectively done little to address the county’s transit infrastructure. With such terrible planning and little vision of what BCT hoped to accomplish, it’s no wonder the additional tax was rejected.