Broward County, I-95, Florida Turnpike (Miami, Coral Springs: construction, gated communities, living in)

[dreamofmonterey]

Just a quick post to those who ever worked/commuted in Broward County. I would like to hear your experiences there- 95 was being extended in the West Palm Beach area, in 2003-4; was just wondering if anyone had jobs either in West Palm or Broward, and had any commuting experience they may want to share. Thanks.

sunny

[macguy]

Originally Posted by sunnyhelena

Just a quick post to those who ever worked/commuted in Broward County. I would like to hear your experiences there- 95 was being extended in the West Palm Beach area, in 2003-4; was just wondering if anyone had jobs either in West Palm or Broward, and had any commuting experience they may want to share. Thanks.

sunny

95 can be bad due to the drivers. One of the biggest problems is there are entry and exits every mile or two and there is a lot of local traffic that uses it. People who get on and off again in two exits crossing lanes and generally driving poorly. The traffic moves and is not grid locked except for accidents. Other then that you get around pretty quick. It is just you have to be very wary of the quality of the other drivers.

Driving from Broward north to the Palm Beaches is much better then into Miami especially in rush hour. My wife and her sister have an office in Miami and she drives in the off hours (non Rush) and she is always there in 15 to 25 minutes from central Broward. I am trying to be objective, all rush hour driving is bad in heavily populated areas but 95 is a little better then most from what I have experienced.

[tallrick]

All the problems in SOuth Florida come from driving east to west as few roads go that way. Also expect backups where roads merge or near toll plazas. The turnpike is surprisingly bad in most of South Florida.

[dreamofmonterey]

Originally Posted by tallrick

All the problems in SOuth Florida come from driving east to west as few roads go that way. Also expect backups where roads merge or near toll plazas. The turnpike is surprisingly bad in most of South Florida.

Re; The Fl Tpke- my brother's friend is a dr who works out of Boca- he said the fatalities on the tpke are way up- due to the speed (everyone going 80+) the accidents are no longer minor- I just remember being terrified of the Tpke- esp in the west Miami/Broward regions where you are so isolated.

sunny.

[SunnyDog]

The driving is OK--no snow or ice to deal with like in TN. Lots of cars on the road, but that's because lots of people want to live here.

[LIFL]

I wish there was a real mass-transit, maybe a Light-rail or something.

[Nolefan34]

Originally Posted by isles20

I wish there was a real mass-transit, maybe a Light-rail or something.

There is light rail. Its called Tri-Rail. It runs north-south from downtown Miami to West Palm Beach. There is also the Miami Metrorail system for Dade County residents. The problem with Tri-Rail is they only have 1 north-south line, and no east-west. So unless you live near a station, Tri-Rail is rather inconvenient and useless for most in Broward. If you live in Coral Springs, it would take more time to travel east to the Deerfield Beach Tri-Rail station in order to commute to Miami than it would just to drive to Miami. Tri-Rail is more convenient for someone living in West Palm Beach who commutes to downtown Miami.

95 here is nothing like the Long Island Expressway in NYC, but is no cakewalk either. The drivers are the biggest reason. We have the worst drivers in the nation hands down. You will see suicide drivers who literally try to cause an accident. You'll see lots of hot shots driving BMW's or old beat up station wagons or minivans weaving in and out inches from peoples' bumpers and cutting people off. Lots of young guys driving suped up cereal box cars driving like the movie Fast & Furious. Then you have thousands of tourists and illegal aliens swamping the roadways who have no idea where they're going or how to drive here. It is a perfect storm of different people trying to go different speeds to different places.

Traffic here is worse the further south you go. Miami has 2X the traffic as Broward, and Broward has 2X the traffic of Palm Beach. The other problem with 95 as someone else mentioned is there is an exit every mile up throughout Miami and Broward. This creates a situation where it is impossible to drive in the right lane doing the speed limit and get anywhere. So people are constantly making quick lane changes to avoid getting stuck behind a line of slow moving cars in the right.

The Turnpike has less volume of traffic because it is located further west and has less exits. It only has an exit about every 5 miles or so. The Turnpike was originally intended to be a long distance highway, although that has changed in recent years. The Turnpike has been recently widened in Central Broward County to 8 lanes each direction plus longer merging lanes.

[Nolefan34]

Originally Posted by dreamofmonterey

Just a quick post to those who ever worked/commuted in Broward County. I would like to hear your experiences there- 95 was being extended in the West Palm Beach area, in 2003-4; was just wondering if anyone had jobs either in West Palm or Broward, and had any commuting experience they may want to share. Thanks.

sunny

95 was widened throughout most of Palm Beach County over the past decade. I believe the construction started in roughly '03-'04 like you said and was completed very recently. They started with the area from Delray Beach to Lake Worth, then they did from West Palm Beach to PGA Blvd, then they did PGA Blvd to Indiantown Road in Jupiter.

I can tell you this improved traffic significantly. It is rare you even tap on the brakes throughout most of PBC anymore on 95. They never widened the area from Boca Raton south to Pompano Beach, and I can tell you this area gets bottlenecked regularly. 95 is still only 8 lanes in that stretch, but they really need 10 lanes.

[LIFL]

Originally Posted by Nolefan34

There is light rail. Its called Tri-Rail. It runs north-south from downtown Miami to West Palm Beach. There is also the Miami Metrorail system for Dade County residents. The problem with Tri-Rail is they only have 1 north-south line, and no east-west. So unless you live near a station, Tri-Rail is rather inconvenient and useless for most in Broward. If you live in Coral Springs, it would take more time to travel east to the Deerfield Beach Tri-Rail station in order to commute to Miami than it would just to drive to Miami. Tri-Rail is more convenient for someone living in West Palm Beach who commutes to downtown Miami.

95 here is nothing like the Long Island Expressway in NYC, but is no cakewalk either. The drivers are the biggest reason. We have the worst drivers in the nation hands down. You will see suicide drivers who literally try to cause an accident. You'll see lots of hot shots driving BMW's or old beat up station wagons or minivans weaving in and out inches from peoples' bumpers and cutting people off. Lots of young guys driving suped up cereal box cars driving like the movie Fast & Furious. Then you have thousands of tourists and illegal aliens swamping the roadways who have no idea where they're going or how to drive here. It is a perfect storm of different people trying to go different speeds to different places.

Traffic here is worse the further south you go. Miami has 2X the traffic as Broward, and Broward has 2X the traffic of Palm Beach. The other problem with 95 as someone else mentioned is there is an exit every mile up throughout Miami and Broward. This creates a situation where it is impossible to drive in the right lane doing the speed limit and get anywhere. So people are constantly making quick lane changes to avoid getting stuck behind a line of slow moving cars in the right.

The Turnpike has less volume of traffic because it is located further west and has less exits. It only has an exit about every 5 miles or so. The Turnpike was originally intended to be a long distance highway, although that has changed in recent years. The Turnpike has been recently widened in Central Broward County to 8 lanes each direction plus longer merging lanes.

Paragraph 1-On a less populated Long Island, we had that. Keep in mind, almost all of Broward is Urban, in population Density, unlike LI which was Suburban.
P2-Trust me, the drivers here are 1 million times worse, but they are not exactly great in SoFla.
P3-Agreed.
P4-It also certainly helps traffic wise that it is a toll road.

[hurricaneMan1992]

Originally Posted by Nolefan34

There is light rail. Its called Tri-Rail. It runs north-south from downtown Miami to West Palm Beach.

Tri-rail doesn't go anywhere near downtown Miami--or any of the dense coastal areas of Broward. Travel times between Palm Beach and Miami are too long. This greatly limits it's usefulness. It should be 15 minutes from the Golden Glades station to downtown Miami, but it will take you more like 30-45 minutes because they take you way west, then they want you to wait for a Metrorail train and take that back east.

The FEC coastal commuter rail (hopefully...) being built in the next 5-10 years would greatly help, especially if we get some east/west lines feeding into the system. Downtown Lauderdale is getting "the wave" circulator light rail, and there has been talk of a line along 595. But by the time you get into west Broward with all the gated communities, park-and-ride 595 and 95 express busses are more practical. "75/826 express" busses to Palmetto station and looping through Doral could also be effective for west Broward, as well as west Miami-Dade.