Miami expressways modernize

Miami-Dade's tollroads after a couple of decades of state neglect are now thriving under local control. Revenue is being seriously pursued with hikes in tolls and plans for new tolling points to support an ambitious capital program. Close to $60m will be collected in tolls this year versus $11m in 1997 when the state pattern was still in place. A system that dealt almost exclusively in coins until a few years ago will next year get rid of its last coin machines. All its plazas will soon have open road electronic tolling in two lanes with pavement laid for a third when needed. And Miami Dade Expressway Authority (MDX) is contemplating a video toll system a la 407-ETR in new toll plazas instead of cash collection for non-transponder holders.

Three new toll plazas are in study. Or maybe we should call them tolling points because if there is no cash toll collection and no stopping then the roadway doesn't widen out for toll collection and surely it is that far wide stretch of pavement for 20 or so toll lanes that constitutes a plaza. In open road tolling the roadway is normal and the toll equipment is over the roadway on a gantry and embedded within it in loops.

New tolling points in study and design at MDX are:

1. An FL-836 West out near the HEFT to come on line when a 5km (3mi) extension of 836 is complete but which will also collect tolls from HEFT to 836 traffic

2. Reconstruction and enlargement of the FL-874 Don Shula or South Dade Exwy mainline toll plaza

3. Tolling on the new Interconnector expressway on the eastern boundary of Miami Airport connecting the FL-836 and the FL-112 (Airport Expressway)

Heavy reliance on smart-enough loops

MDX has just retired its last treadles and light curtains for classification. Its new toll system from United Toll Systems (UTS) relies entirely on signal processing of the electromagnetic field of vehicles via loops in the lanes to count axles, detect drawbars, and track speed and position - brandnamed IVIS for intelligent vehicle identification system.

All is not smooth going. MDX officials say the UTS toll system needs more work. They say the system needs major debugging. It still throws up many anomalies and a number of functions operate only sporadically. While we were there the toll plaza superintendent at the 836 plaza was having trouble with the digital video audit system (DVAS). It had crashed and wouldn't work when we arrived. After a tour of the lanes and a time in a toll booth it had been gotten up again, but someone said it was chronically unstable.

"A lot of work is still needed debugging it (the toll system) to gain reliable operations. It is nowhere near complete," said Roberto Garcia, Contract Manager Toll Operations. He has a reputation among colleagues for being a disciplinarian and a perfectionist. While we were there he was asking sharp questions of the plaza superintendent about why so many collectors were on duty. The traffic didn't warrant the number of lanes that were staffed, he said. The contractor was being billing the authority for excess hours as a result.

A UTS manager told us that some of the DVAS problems are power supply fluctuations and inadequate grounding, not the DVAS itself. Jim Allen president of the company has been personally working 18 hour days in Miami on the project trying to iron out problems and get it to the stage where it can gain MDX acceptance.

Steve Andriuk, director of toll operations is optimistic the problems with the UTS system will be solved. He says any major new system has problems. MDX has a "beta" system from UTS that will take more time and effort by the operator and the developer, but Andriuk says, he's confident it will be a very good system and a major advance when fully developed.

UTS has developed a new scheme for open road tolling in which the readers for separate lanes 'talk' back and forth with one another handling vehicles, when they are within both read cones. The UTS video audit system is unique took in recording every toll transaction, then subjecting the transactions to analysis to list the most anomalous for visual review.

Built from Dell components the system hardware is fully modular so faulty components can be quickly replaced, and switches made with the stuff live. If the reliance on the 'intelligent loops' for classification pans out the system should be low maintenance.

New 836 plaza

The testbed for the $13m UTS system is the splendid new signature toll plaza on FL-836 featuring the asymmetrical tower set between the two open road tolling lanes and the six mixed mode toll lanes. Like a cable stayed bridge the tower suspends a canopy over the mixed mode lanes where some lanes have collectors and vehicles stopping, and the open road lanes where only overhead equipment and signs. But unlike most other toll system it has no treadles or light curtains for vehicle sensing or any profilers for vehicle classification. It does all in all the lanes - open road as well as slow or stopping with four sets of loops in each toll pavement and digital signal processing that converts the metallic signature of vehicle underbodies into vehicle presence, position, and length data and axle counts.

TransCore is supplying the readers, lane controllers and transponders which are a variant of the California Type 21 and work with the Florida Trunpike's SunPass tags. There are cameras in all lanes using a strobe for license plate illumination. It produces exceptionally sharp pictures and automatically picks out the license plate and displays it nicely on the screen. Most of the cameras take rear pictures. Cars in Florida don't carry a front number plate. But MDX is doing some frontal cameras for trucks.

Filling the pores of porous toll network

MDX network consists of four unconnected urban expressways, each mostly of six travel lanes. Each tollroad has only a single tolling point but multiple interchanges. Two of the tollroads toll both direction, two in a single direction (eastbound) Each is substantially free.

Sam Gonzales, an MDX veteran and now in charge of capital projects as Engineering Director, says there are about 200k tolled trips daily on MDX's four roads versus about 600k free trips. It is a very porous network. Gonzales says the MDX board is encouraging the staff to develop a system in which all trips pay. This becomes feasible with open road electronic tolling.

Steve Andriuk operations chief arrived early this year from a career in tolls in Virginia, just in time he says to stop coin machines being installed at the 836.

"They are a big pain," he says. High maintenance and disliked by motorists. Americans are not coin people anymore, he says. And with tolls going to $1.00 minimum that's four coins. He's a strong believer in transponders for regular users and toll collectors for the others, at least until video tolling or sticker tags is there to cater for the others.

At the new 874 plaza there will be three lanes of open road tolling each direction and minimal cash collection plazas (4 lanes) off to the side, and a mile apart in a 'split plaza' arrangement to minimize space needs.

Ramps on the new 836 plaza from the HEFT may be the first to be electronic toll only, by which they mean transponder reads or video toll at a premium. The combination of the HEFT and MDX patronage in this corridor and the several different toll points will give motorists a powerful incentive to get transponders.

Operations at are contracted out, keeping actual salaried staff to about 30.

New projects

The biggest new project MDX has in planning is the Interconnector for which it is presently acquiring right of way and permits. It is to be a 3km (2mi) elevated structure running north-south across the front or eastern edge of Miami Internat Airport. It will connect the two major MDX tollroads, 836 and 112. In some respects it is one extended interchange since it will provide ramp connections also to other highways and streets. The Interconnector will be electronic-only tolling (transponders and video), no cash. Cost is put at about $400m, with about $180m going for right of way. Permits are due to be finalized mid-2004, with detailed design to follow for construction beginning in 2007 for a 2011 opening. Work is already underway on improvements to ramps at the western end of the 112 which will improve connections to local streets, and reduce blockage of traffic entering and leaving the airport itself. This is designed to accommodate the Interconnector. Also in the design of the Interconnector is provision at its northern end for connections to the next big project, the Central Expressway (CE). The CE has been the subject of a Project Concept Report (Dade Consultants 2002-08).

The Central expressway (CE) extends the Interconnector proceeding due north from the northeast corner of Miami internat Airport at NW35th St to the Gratigny Exwy (FL-924) and on to at least NW135th St, about 10km (6.4mi) although some versions have it going a bit further to the Palmetto Exwy FL-826 which makes it 14km (8.5mi). Its location is right along the Miami area's major north-south railroad line called the South Florida Rail Corridor which runs CSX freight, Amtrak and commuter rail. There is a lot of associated warehousing and light industrial for a block or so on either side but there are also some residential areas along the route. At the northern end is a major secondary airport Opa-Locka Airport.

There's a community revival aspect to the project in that it goes through some of the poorest parts of the metro area. Many of the light industrial and warehousing properties along the railroad are rather rundown, in part it is said, because of lack of modern highway connections. Trucks have to travel from traffic signal to traffic signal.

Say the consultants: "A lack of direct and rapid vehicular access top the region's major economic centers may have limited the ability of the area's businesses and residents to easily and effectively participate in the economic activity of the region." (p1-3)

The CE project should help improve productivity in the warehousing and logistics businesses along the route and also improve metro area circulation. It will help connect the corridor to the airports, connect three existing tollroads and through them improve connections to the broader metro area and beyond.

The Concept report looked at two main alternate designs: Alt-1 straddling the railroad tracks, and Alt-2 also elevated to span the cross streets and railroad spurs but located immediately east of the railroad lines. Straddling the railroad turns out to be quite expensive because of government clearance regulations. The report assumes no real estate savings by hoisting the road over the rails (each Alt is costed at $296m) and clearly favors Alt-2 - separating the road from the railroad right of way. Cost of construction separately is put at $927m Alt-2 vs Alt-1 on top at $1164m. Separate from the rails there are several structural options whereas over the raillines there's not much alternative to big wide straddle bents - a pier at each side and a big beam between them to support the roadway.

The road is proposed 2x3-lanes with interchanges at four intermediate cross streets (NW54, NW79, NW103, NW119). Some traffic modeling suggests 2020 AADT trips of 143k, 133k, 125k, 115k and 45k in the five mainline segments counting from north to south. No real traffic and revenue study has been done.

HISTORY: 112 the Airport Expressway is a tight 2x3-lanes with narrow lanes and no shoulders. The toll plazas are mean in dimension and produce considerable queuing even in the middle of the day. Opened in 1962 the 112 was the first motorway type road in Southern Florida. It was known in its earlier days as the East-West Expressway, which name confusingly got transferred to FL-836 when it was constructed years afterward - by which time 112 had become known by its current name Airport expressway. I-95 in those days was known as the North-South Expressway. Now of course it is just 95. The Airport to which the expressway goes has also had multiple name changes. Before MIA it was the Amelia Earhart in honor of the pioneering woman aviator, and before that Miami Municipal. The 836 has been known at times as the Dolphin Expressway. TRnews 2003-12-16