Roadrageous, It’s Contagious
If You Think Beach Commuters Are Rude Now, Wait Until
FDOT Tears Into the Flyover

“I don’t know how bad it’s going to be with this. This is a major road to get to the hospitals.”—Kenny, operator of the 63rd Street drawbridge

By Rebecca Wakefield

Kenny, the round-faced tender of the 63rd Street drawbridge, has been watching the people who drive over, under and around his tiny world for about 12 years now. He has seen people stop their cars at the apex of the bridge’s arch, leap out, and begin pummeling each other to finish some unknown debate begun in another part of town.

He has gawked at the sheer display of constabulary produced by the suicide of Gianni Versace’s murderer, Andrew Cunanan, on a houseboat not far from the little blue bridge house where Kenny whiles away his shifts.

He has played bemused witness to the frustrated working-class commuter stalled by the slow passage of persons with yachts — and kept vigil as the grandly decaying old hotels of mid- and North Beach were subsumed by the garish pastel developments of prescient entrepreneurs like Craig Robins.

Kenny is aware that he works in a war zone. Politicians with dueling experts have spent something like a decade arguing over whether or not a smooth, narrow curve of concrete flyover should continue to exist above 63rd Street, where the bridge meets Indian Creek Drive.

The fight over demolishing or saving the flyover has had many points of contention, boiling down to two main poles. In the blow-’er-up camp, officials believe the Fifties-era flyover represents a safety issue because the large trucks hauling campaign contributions from the mainland to the coffers of Beach pols sometimes get stuck under the low-hanging structure. In the save-our-beloved-cement-slingshot camp, residents would rather let the occasional truck take a chip out of the flyover than contemplate extending their drive time. Or something like that.

Kenny, the expert I turn to, says that while sometimes people get into minor accidents on the bridge because they try to suddenly change lanes or beat the gate, most of the trouble is indeed with trucks going under the ’over. “Once every two weeks, trucks clip it,” he says, pointing to its tattooed underbelly.

Backing up a bit, let me explain that the Florida Department of Transportation plans to renovate the bridge itself anyway, a project estimated to take either 13 months or forever, depending on who is estimating. Removing the flyover would take a couple of months, tops. Like 72 percent of Beach voters (who made their feelings known when the voted to preserve the structure in a November 2004 straw ballot), but unlike four of the commissioners, I’m a flyover fan and think that some of the arguments for its removal are disingenuous. But the real problem is what happens during the deconstruction. Sheer hell, basically.

Traffic heading northeast will get thrown onto Collins Avenue right in one of its worst bottlenecks. Traffic in any other direction will be reduced to a study in time-lapse photography. Folks trying to game the system by traveling via Biscayne Boulevard to 79th Street or 36th Street will run into other obstacle courses already set in motion by the state. In the tradition of most FDOT social experiments, managed discontent is the inevitable result. “It’s very congested over here between 5 and 8,” Kenny notes. “I don’t know how bad it’s going to be with this. This is a major road to get to the hospitals.”

The commission voted unanimously last month to send Mayor David Dermer to Tallahassee to beg Gov. Jeb Bush to delay the project for a year or so until roadwork on Biscayne Boulevard has been completed, assuming it ever is. FDOT, which did at least agree to delay the project until the school year ends, was reluctant to put the bridge/flyover project off by a year because it would add $5 million to the cost.

Dermer made his pitch last Friday and met again with FDOT officials on Wednesday. The outcome was not apparent at press time.

Commissioner Richard Steinberg, who, with Dermer and former commissioner Jose Smith, formed the core of the commission’s flyover preservation movement, does not love the thought of his 30-block crawl to the office every day. “I spoke to the secretary of FDOT [Monday],” he advises. “From FDOT’s standpoint, they are going forward. It’s really the governor’s call.”

“At this time the department has not been notified that the project will be delayed,” Herbert Ammons, a spokesman for FDOT, told me through the safety of e-mail on Tuesday.

Commissioner Saul Gross, who has consistently voted, along with Matti Bower, Simon Cruz and Luis Garcia, to demolish the flyover, says he believes FDOT when it claims that the flyover is a safety hazard. That’s why he voted to support tearing it down. But he also thinks it is crazy not to postpone the bridge project until Biscayne Boulevard is clear.

“A lot of people say to me, ‘We voted against that,’” Gross opines. “I had to explain to them [the straw ballot vote] was more of a feel-good measure. The irony of the whole thing, it’s basically an FDOT decision, not a Miami Beach decision. FDOT never really cared what the commission thinks.”

If that’s true, then a whole lot of meetings over the years were nothing more than mutual masturbation. It’s possible, I suppose. Many such meetings are. I asked Gross about the Craig Robins effect. Robins began pushing for flyover removal after deciding to build Aqua, the pricey condo community immediately adjacent to it. “I spoke to Craig recently about it and he said either way it didn’t really affect him,” Gross told me. “He does think the intersection will be better without the flyover, but I don’t think he was driving this. I never received calls on this from Craig.” Well, that clears that up.

Just a couple of days ago, Connecticut-based auto club AutoVantage released a survey on road rage in 20 of the nation’s largest cities. Miami topped the list of asshole drivers, above even New York and Los Angeles. I predict Miami Beach will outshine Miami next year.

Back on the bridge, Kenny glances west into the fading sun, then east over the road’s spine where it curves into the feet of the hotel Casablanca’s sentinels, on the clogged artery of Collins Avenue. It’s bad now. Once construction starts, Kenny will have some more war stories to take home every day.

“It’s going to be a nightmare,” he offers, cheerfully.

Comments? E-mail wakefield@miamisunpost.com.