It is time that someone addresses the developing Florida Department of Transportation program of so-called “Lexus Lanes”. These lanes are the high speed, low usage lanes reserved for those with the money to afford them and offered up as a creative system to reduce highway gridlock during the high traffic volume “rush” hours. In truth, this program creates a caste system of access to our public highway system. The correlate to the “Lexus Lanes” is, of course, the “Riffraff Lanes”.
To read the South Florida press, anyone would think that there is no cause for controversy at all. In fact, it is clear that our independent South Florida Newspapers have swallowed the Department of Transportation line, well, hook, line and sinker. In fact, a reader might think that the reporter of any given article just picked up their prepared thoughts and research from the Department of Transportation and put their name on it. I have yet to read a note of investigative reporting or thought in any of these articles. Mike Mayo of the Sun-Sentinel wrote an article 04/18/2012. wrote one opinion piece where he actually used the phrase “Lexus Lanes”, but concluded the article by ducking and suggesting that it seems to be working. Who paid him?
The fact is that we all live in the United States of America where there is equal protection under the law. That has always been interpreted to mean that we all have equal access to any and all government resources whether we are talking about access to public parks, justice or the highways. The plan for Florida’s highways and byways is to create lanes that limit access by creating a financial barrier. Only those who meet special rules or who have the money to pay their way in get access. The plan apparently includes access to special lanes on bridges, major urban arteries or anywhere else that may be a potential traffic chokepoint. Today, in South Florida, the next stretch of I-95 from the Golden Glades right on up to Sunrise Blvd is in construction. And that’s just phase 2. The reconstruction of I-595 is also in the news. The I-595 express lanes will go to/from the I-75/ Sawgrass Expressway from/to east of S.R. 7, with a direct connection to the median of Florida’ s Turnpike with tolls ranging from $ .25 to $7.00. More opportunities for luxury lanes are apparently being explored. I am here to say, this is just not American.
The fact is that many heavily traveled urban highway systems feature limited access express lanes. I have driven them myself in Chicago and Washington DC. I am told that there are many cities with these systems. They work to reduce traffic congestion and charge no tolls. They work because these are limited access lanes for traffic that will travel longer distances. If you need to exit the highway, you had better be in the local lanes or you could find yourself 7 to 10 miles down the road and out of your way. In fact the I-95 express lanes have no exits or entrances for 7 miles, from Golden Glades to SR 112.
The other fact is that we are talking about federal highways. This bright idea is apparently traveling like a bad cold to include stretches of highway in the areas of Baltimore, Denver, Houston, Salt Lake City and Minnesota. The time to stop this cruel abuse of public commerce is now. Now where are those pesky consumer advocacy organizations?
Pity the poor guy who has to get to work and makes minimum wage, he is financially prohibited from using those high speed lanes unless he can get two other regular riders and register with the authorities. Of course, the guy in the Lexus with the big bucks; well he can travel those lanes unimpeded at 70 to 80 mph at the height of rush hour. Is that fair? Should that even be legal?
