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Traffic, complaints jamming the Keys
BY JULIEN GORBACH
keysnews.com
ISLAMORADA —
Traffic congestion is nothing new to island residents connected by one
mostly two-lane road that stretches 124 miles. But people say they have
never seen it this bad.
Upper Keys
residents complain that the crawl on U.S.1 during tourist season has
never been so grindingly slow and sustained.
"I would say I
have not seen the traffic this steady in the length of time I have been
here," said Karen Tiedemann, president of the Key Largo Chamber of
Commerce. "And I have to say, I haven't heard as much complaints about
traffic as I have this year. People are complaining about traffic, but
they are happy people are coming here."
Tiedemann said
the chamber's visitor center averaged 648 visits a day last February.
The chamber has had about 1,000 visitors every day for the past week and
a half. Occupancy rates are also 4 percent to 14 percent higher than
this time last season, which was considered a busy one.
Peter Ilchuk,
president of the Lodging Association of the Florida Keys and Key West,
said some of the increased bottlenecking is from visitors, but many
employees now live in Homestead and Florida City and commute to work in
the Upper Keys. There are also increasing numbers of cars with Monroe
County plates. Commuters in the Lower Keys create long lines of traffic
driving into Key West in the morning and out in the evenings, and some
people are commuting from the Upper Keys to Miami.
Capt. Joe
Leiter, who is in charge of the Islamorada substation, agreed.
"There is now
truly a rush hour commute in the morning and for most of the afternoon,
all the way going up the stretch to Florida City," he said. "That's
what's changed."
Leiter said he
has never seen traffic so heavy in the 24 years he has lived here.
"The joke was
you could lay down in the middle of U.S. 1 in the middle of the night
shift and take a nap," he said. "Now the joke is if you want to get to
the other side of U.S. 1 during the tourist season, you have to be born
there."
Ilchuk points
to a variety of additional factors that have added to the congestion —
explosive development in south Dade County; the extremely cold weather
up north this winter; and the fact that many visitors fly into Miami or
Fort Lauderdale instead of Key West, and then drive down the Keys.
Construction
projects have further exacerbated delays. Road improvement work between
the Snake Creek Bridge and the lower end of Founders Park, including
resurfacing, widening and drainage, began on Jan. 12 and was scheduled
to last for 120 days, according to a representative of the Florida
Department of Transportation, who declined to be identified. Lane
closures occur between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. on Sunday through Thursday
nights. Although it doesn't necessitate lane closures, the construction
also crimps the traffic flow during the day.
The FDoT
representative said the contractors have a $1,000 a day incentive to
finish the work ahead of time.
Traffic was
also detoured from the stretch to Card Sound Road Feb. 17-18 for bridge
repairs.
jgorbach@keysnews.com
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