Study: Cost To Build Miami River Tunnel Could Exceed $1B

·28 Comments

A research firm has completed a study on a potential tunnel under the Miami River to alleviate traffic cause by the Brickell Avenue Drawbridge.

Several alternatives are presented, including placing the tunnel entrance at the entrance to Brickell Key. The cost could exceed $1 billion.

Miami’s DDA passed a resolution at a recent meeting urging FDOT to place the project in their five year plan.

 

newly completed study:

02 07 2017 Miami River Tunnel Feasibility Study Presentation—The Next MiamiDocs.com

 

 

dda resolution:

 

 

 

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Anonymous
4 years ago

10 miles of metrorail would cost about 1 billion. Much better way to spend that kind of money.

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Anonymous
4 years ago

Hear, hear. This better be after the SMART plan.

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Marc305
4 years ago

The current bridge goes up 72 times a day, that is an actual number. Build it!

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Anonymous
4 years ago

Yes!!! x 72

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Fact checker...
4 years ago

No way, I live in brixkell overlooking the bridge, that bridge doesn’t not open in average once every 20min (72min) that’s a lie..or an alternative truth as Trump spin doctors would say…

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Marc305
4 years ago

@ Fact checker – The number 72 comes from a study that was conducted by the city and reported by this site. If you are going to call yourself a fact checker how about you do some research before posting.

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miami1
4 years ago

Options 3 and 4 are the obvious winners, the current bridge does not have to be taken down so disruption to regular traffic would be minimal. This project should have been done in conjunction with the Port Tunnel and some money could have been saved!

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Anonymous
4 years ago

Are you kidding me? Mass transit now!

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Tomas Possenti
4 years ago

LOL @ outside the box reference using Star Trek on Pg35 and three dimensional chess.

On a serious note; the tunnel boring machine that was used for the Port Miami tunnel belongs to the entity which is a public private partnership between the city, the county, FDOT and many of the same govermental bodies that would run this project as well. That machine alone was $45M initially, why not reuse it?
Why are they not proposing using that same tool as a method of costs savings? It is the same dimensions as they propose, 2 lanes each way.

Did they destroy the machine? Why isn’t that mentioned in the conceptual cost estimate on Pg 85? (or even as an asterisk*)
It would make the gap between the bored and mined methods significantly higher, and give the bored method a significant cost advantage.

Just my .02
Tomas Possenti

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Tomas Possenti
4 years ago

governmental*

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Anonymous
4 years ago

they plowed that machine into the ground on the side of that tunnel as it would have cost more to dismantle it.

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miami1
4 years ago

Use MDX Toll money!

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Anonymous
4 years ago

MDX is tolls are mosly used by people in the suburbs: West Dade, Kendall, South Dade, and Northwest Dade. Why should they pay for Brickell’s tunnel??? This is a problem of the City of Miami, not Dade County as a whole. MDX funds should be used to improve mass transit. If people used the FREE metro mover there wouldn’t as much congestion!!

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miami1
4 years ago

I live in the “suburbs” and I’m ok with my $$ going towards a tunnel under the Miami River because I support anything that would make Miami a great city. I’m also in favor of the six transit lines and if it were up to me I would also tear down I95 south of NW 36 St and I 395 completely. By the way congestion happens because the bridge opens 72 times a day!!!

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Anonymous
4 years ago

You are so right I don’t mind of they eliminate that portion of i95 I’ve been saying that for years and people thought I was crazy

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Anonymous
4 years ago

<3 utilitarianism

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marc
4 years ago

I agree. MDX money as a whole should not be used to make Brickellites quality of life better. A small percentage of it certainly but get the developers in Brickell and Downtown as well as the taxpayers i.e. business owners and residents of the surrounding areas pay for it. That sounds reasonable enough to me.

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Anonymous
4 years ago

Downtown pays the majority of Miami’s taxes.

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Anonymous
4 years ago

Well they are talking about MDX dollars in this case, which are collected by tolls not property taxes. Please read comments before replying.

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Anonymous
4 years ago

Their property taxes are lower. Let suburbia contribute. Their green footprint is 5 times greater

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Anonymous
4 years ago

MDX is legally required to put all of its revenue from tolls back into its roads and does not receive funding from taxpayers. It boggles my mind that people think that a road system that does not get gas tax revenues should: a) not have tolls and; b) redirect revenue (which would not exist without tolls) to public transit.

Give me a break.

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Anonymous
4 years ago

Roadways have a limit of how wide they can get. What will happen in 20, 30 years from now? Will we have 20 lane expressways? Not likely, but I’m sure MDX will still be collecting those tolls… Widening expressways is not a sustainable solution to metropolitan transportation problems.

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Anonymous
4 years ago

This $1B will significantly increase property prices and thus taxes collected. Pays for itself many times over. Build it!

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Katia
4 years ago

Why has no one thought of building urban gondolas in Miami??

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Anonymous
4 years ago

Would it be less expensive to build a signature bridge at the mouth of the Miami River? Following the path of Option 5?

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Sobe
4 years ago

I am extremely happy with this bottleneck in BrickHell. Absolutely hate that place. If you decide to live in that hell hole, you deserve to suffer. Or just move to Downtown, Park West, Edgewater, Midtown, Morningside or Wynwood like all decent people do.

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aceraroja
4 years ago

I live right at the bridge and my life isn’t affected at all by it, aside from retards honking at the bridge being open, because I don’t drive. I have literally no sympathy for the kind of asshole who decides to drive an automobile through downtown and Brickell over that bridge. You KNOW it’s impassable half the time. If you still choose to drive your fat ass across it, suffer the consequences. At least you don’t have to breathe your own toxic fumes, like the people who have decided to walk or bike. Gas taxes should be cripplingly high and all of the revenue plowed into mass transit and bike lanes and greenways and pedestrian boulevards. Fuck this tunnel.

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Anonymous
4 years ago

Agree totally.

I don’t even live in downtown but just outside it. I only bike into and out of the downtown area if I go. If you drive a car into or out of, you should expect to pay the price in time spent waiting for all the gridlock that goes along with it.

Or learn to exercise like Manhattanites and other downtown Miami dwellers have. Get out of your car and onto a bike… you’d be surprised how much faster it is getting around downtown. Besides a tunnel wont help during Ultra music festival, 4th of July, Heat game, other random downtown event, etc… There will always be traffic problems in dense environments for devices that take up so much space to move (automobiles). Learn to ped/bike/Uber people!

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