I-95 Express Lanes from Butler to Downtown

[southsider1015]

Why do they always target homes for ROW acquisition and not businesses? Those gas stations are dumps and the ponds could easily go there instead of making people move out of their homes.

I honestly think all of the express lane segments are going to be an absolute disaster. If you only have sections here and there it isn't going to work. The merging into and out of express lanes will cause just as much of a traffic slowdown as there is now.

Although I don't know the actual situation on this project, I can shed some light.

Just looking at this project, the south half of the project is almost all commercial.  The north half has much more residential communities.  Sometimes, residential properties are cheaper than commercial properties for ROW acquisition.  However, moving expenses and other residential-specific costs can quickly add up.  But so can business damages as well.  So there really isn't any "targeting" of specific properties.  Gas stations, billboards, and dense active commercial developments with multiple businesses (like Metro Park at Emerson) are typically avoided, but sometimes the numbers can work out.

Gas stations sites do not make good stormwater pond site locations.  Contamination is expensive to clean up, so the site location doesn't score well when evaluating different pond site locations.

Notice at the ingress/egress of the Express Lanes that an additional aux lane is added to reduce congestion at the connectivity point between GPLs and ELs.   Miami figured this out the hard way.   Take a look at the concept again.  For NB I-95, there's only one ingress and one egress.  For SB I-95, there's one ingress and two egresses (one for JTB and one to push past JTB).  So there really isn't a bunch of merging traffic in and out.

[southsider1015]

I'd love to see some of the blighted commercial properties, like that old Days Inn off University taken out.  However, I assume the residential properties are considered cheaper ROW.  I also wonder if there's a way for NB traffic coming from JTB to access the toll lanes?  Other than that, I can see a scenario where express lanes are extended from this project, all the way across the Fuller Warren Bridge.  Nevertheless, where these lanes merge with the general lanes will probably end up being points of congestion.  They tend to be a mess on I-95 during rush hour in Miami and Northern Virginia.

See my last couple of posts for responses to your comments. 

Also, there's currently no plan to extend ELs to the north to the Fuller Warren, to the best of my knowledge.  There's simply not enough room thru Overland, other than repurposing GPLs to ELs.

[southsider1015]

After looking at the sketches, I'm not sold on this project. I think they can do a lot better on the locations of the retention ponds, access to the express lanes and just the overall layout.

95N offramp to Bowden
Congestion happens because of the close proximity of two intersections: Offramp for traffic to turn left onto Bowden and Spring Park Rd/ Bowden. If anything, demolish the Speedway Gas Station to make it one intersection not two to create a better flow

Retention Ponds
I agree with Lake, take a look at a lot of commercial properties not in the best of shape as well as the property at University and 95.  That corner hasn't been developed in 10+ years after an old hotel was demolished.

Bowden on ramp to 95S
Motorist are going to try to cross three+ lanes of traffic to catch the JTB flyover, I think there is a better way to avoid that by having a barrier to prevent this and direct cars to utilize the JTB off ramp.

Express Lanes
I guess the project is designed for no access between the starting and ending points which means a lot of bottlenecking will happen once these lanes merge with the general purpose lanes.

Did anyone attend and if so, did they elaborate on any of these?

Interchange improvements at Bowden and University are still under study.  Apparently there's heavy truck traffic getting off at Bowden that backs up on I-95.  Stay tuned.

That might need to be a long barrier wall to prevent access to the JTB flyover from Bowden.

As I posted before, aux lanes are added to reduce density/congestion at the egress of the ELs to reduce bottlenecking.

[thelakelander]

^Based off some of the EL projects in South Florida, I would not be surprised if a few Overland Bridge and Fuller Warren GPLs are converted to ELs at a later date.  I suspect the need for a connection will come when ELs eventually end up on future projects like ELs on I-10.

[southsider1015]

One final note on the ponds...

FDOT showed many different pond site locations to solicit feedback from the public.  Sometimes residents WANT to be bought out to move, which makes their properties excellent pond site locations since the ROW acquisition process is streamlined.  Unfortunately, the only way to solicit feedback from the public is to show a huge stormwater pond on their property to notify them.  It's sad, but true.  If all of these ponds were not shown at the meeting, many people wouldn't be showing up, and FDOT might miss out on valuable public feedback.  If you're for the project, you won't show up to the meeting.  Typically only the folks against the project show up in masses, and those are the folks FDOT is reaching out to listen to.