The program is legal. It is important to remember that lanes weren’t taken away from the “free” segments and that HOVs are still allowed to use the lanes free of charge.

Does anyone know the LAW?

Why not harden up the far left lane and charge Sun Pass accounts accordingly. The make the second land an HOV lane free of barriers. The state gets its money, the HOV lane gives deserved benefits to qualified carpools, hybrids, school buses, etc. Entry/exit to the HOV lane is permitted at any point of the 95 Express project.

With that said, there are 2 problems:

Very few I-95 drivers realize it’s illegal to cross a double solid white line, in part because we have not had many around here.

Because of the ignorance, FDOT could have started by leaving the double solid lines up longer and begun ticketing lane changers heavily, plus a media campaign that it was illegal to change lanes there. That would have gotten people used to the driving pattern change without causing accidents. Once the driving habit was established, putting up the plastic barriers would have changed nothing.

Hindsight is 20/20 of course.

All of the hemming and hawing that is going on here about this is giving me a headache. The biggest roadblock to effecting change on gridlock here is to not implement the “good” now, for the sake of waiting to (maybe someday, but probably never) implement the “perfect”.

Could the design have been better thought out? Sure. Is this the most perfect solution those of us with endless budgets and endless dreams can think up? No. It isn’t. But does it begin to put a dent in the stream of cars that travel from Downtown Miami north to Broward on a daily basis? I think it will.

With gas prices on their daily climb, 95express will free up those lanes to let the Miami-Dade Transit Route 95 Express buses use them in that in-vogue Bus Rapid Transit mode that is part of an integrated transit system. It will also give those commuters who want to make the choice to pay $2.50 and up for an express ride from downtown Miami to the Golden Glades the freedom to do so.

If it were up to me, I’d rip up I-95 and replace it with a maglev train from here to West Palm Beach, with stops every 10-20 miles. Further, I’d put in feeder routes all along that trunk line that would aid in driving the business to the maglev in order to make it viable.

But, it’s not only up to me.

Quite frankly, I think 95express gives us something to look forward to. It’s the kind of decent, out-of-box thinking that we need to break the logjam.