<br />City Commission Workshop February 10, 2016 City of Sunny Isles Beach, Florida
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<br />place at the theater will be at night so that there will be additional parking available? Mr.
<br />Rothore said that is based on the City Code, for every four (4) seats you are supposed to
<br />provide one (1) parking space.
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<br /> Commissioner Goldman said she thinks it is a very comprehensive, a very effective study.
<br />We all recognize here in the room that we have the physical constraints which dictate a
<br />limited number of solutions to the mitigation, the traffic issues. Obviously the big take away
<br />is that having staggered times of drop off is really the main way to mitigate some of the
<br />traffic issues. She wanted to talk a little bit on mass transit, how would adding additional
<br />buses, who would be responsible, is that a County, a School Board initiative? How do you
<br />incentivize people to use mass transit, would it be for the benefit of just the younger kids, or
<br />the older kids, how can we kind of merge these additional school buses and get people to
<br />actually participate in that and get involved? Mr. Rothore said right now the whole idea is to
<br />kind of highlight the very planning level, preliminary mitigation, and concerned agencies that
<br />needs to be the coordination, if the buses go from 3 to 6, Miami-Dade Transit needs to be
<br />involved, the local school needs to be involved, City departments needs to be involved, that
<br />is something that will come along at a later stage, and that has to be looked at on a separate
<br />basis. This is more just giving ideas as to this needs to be done, how that will be done is of
<br />course a good question, that will be done at a later stage as we get more detailed coordination
<br />among different agencies.
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<br /> Vice Mayor Gatto knows we don’t have a lot of options but she wanted to start with a little
<br />story that happened last week. She left the office not paying attention to what time of the day
<br />it was, she was coming down the ramp from City Hall, she sees on her left a car as she is
<br />pulling out onto the street, there is a car, a mom waiting for her kid in City Hall’s parking lot,
<br />not in a parking space, just out there in the middle of nowhere, and so she tried to get out but
<br />could not make the left turn and so she made the right turn to go north but she knew what
<br />was going to happen, it just brings you back to the street, that is the quagmire. And so she
<br />parked on the side of the street and she went back up to her office and sat at her desk. It is
<br />really a mess, and she knows this is a complaint, but it is what we have now times 100 which
<br />will be later. We will need more Police, etc. She also wants to talk about staggered hours
<br />because for her intuitively and she understands Commissioner Levin when she asked that
<br />question, but it just elongates the pain is really what it does. And so she is not sold on the
<br />idea, she understands why it is an idea, but she is not sold on it because she knows now if she
<br />leaves at a certain time and maybe 30 minutes she can wait and leave, but now maybe it will
<br />be 45 minutes. Also, the four-way stops, she knows it is a solution but she spent many years
<br />on the west coast. You can’t drive through the streets in San Francisco and fly through, every
<br />street is a four-way stop and everybody knows that you yield to your right. Here, nobody
<br />knows that and nobody cares and no one is going to obey the rules. She deals with that on
<br />174th and North Bay Road, and so there is a lot of possibility for confusion and accidents.
<br />Also, the increase in school buses, you know that the school buses are scary and tricky, you
<br />can’t pass them, and she stays away from them at any cause because they can be dangerous to
<br />your driving record if you screw up. She knows that you have come up with some good
<br />solutions but it just seems like all of this is just going to be amplified in a very big way once
<br />this gets going. She is not sold on the staggered hours.
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<br /> Mayor Scholl said if the 163rd Street bridge went up and 900 cars back up and head for
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