Letter to the Editor
Could there possibly be an agency more useless than Florida Dept. of Transportation? Ongoing disputes with property owners over right-of-way usage with a 40 to 50 year history. Stretches of roadway like a washboard remain while relatively solid, smooth areas get repaved. I’m sure Sheriff Rick Ramsey might have a comment or two about FDOT’s stand on pedestrian crosswalks and their refusal to correct them. And of course, we are all aware of the fabulous job FDOT did in thoroughly screwing up the post-Irma debris collection — which, after 5 months, still isn’t completely finished, folks.
FDOT can’t even do their own job. The agency has a massive contract with Infrastructure Corporation of America (ICA) to maintain the state roads in the Keys.
The highway looks like crap. Route 1 is the welcoming corridor for our tourists coming to the Keys and gives them their first impression of our island community. Ugh! And this goes back well before Irma. The state road prisoners did most of the grass mowing, tree trimming, and trash pickup along the highway until the prison closed. Now, it hardly gets done at all. Instead of prisoners being paid a few dollars a day, ICA is trying to hire crews of workers at $16 – $20 per hour plus benefits to do the same work. In my 15 years here I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a sweeper on the highway. The amount of trash and dirt is incredible especially on our bridges. I’ve seen the shoulder lane completely blocked in places by obstacles. We exhort our visitors to love our sensitive environment, don’t litter, and leave nothing behind but a footprint. FDOT doesn’t seem to get that message.
This is one of many examples throughout the Keys, I am certain, but just before the northbound Tom’s Harbor bridge is a grassy area where 60 – 80 trees were planted a few years ago. Irma laid most of them over toward the bike path. If, sometime in the first 3 months or so, FDOT had sent a few men there for a couple of days to right those trees and brace them, all or almost all could have been saved at a cost of only a few thousand dollars. Two weeks ago, they decided that the bike path had to be cleared, so FDOT sent a crew and we thought that finally they were going to save all those trees. Their solution instead was to chainsaw the trees with branches intruding on the bike path, leaving behind bare tree trunks still sticking out of the ground at crazy angles. None of the other trees were touched; they remain as Irma left them 5 months ago. FDOT apparently would rather replace all those trees at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars than to spend a few dollars to save what was there.
I repeat my initial question: could there possibly be an agency more useless than Florida Dept. of Transportation?
Harry Wagner
Duck Key, FL
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I agree wholeheartedly. The DOT had plenty of funding to cut down a bunch of trees and kill a bunch of wildlife on the Florida Greenway and then PAVE all the way through it, but doesn’t seem to have the money to pave roads that taxpayers actually drive on.