Battle Of the Bridges

A similar situation is happening on Singer Island. The DOT is slated to build a draw bridge for a very narrow channel so just a few rich yacht owners in a marina (the one that maddoff kept his boat at) can get through without having to go around.

The residents of the Island will have to go through a very rough part of town some 10 miles out of the way to get to the same grocery stores/ and shops that are now just 2 miles away.

This is a total waste of money, the bridge we have is fine.

I lived in Palm City just 4 minutes away from the Palm City bridge, and traffic is a major issue there. Since Palm City serves as an Interstate and Turnpike junction, there is a large amount of through traffic. These freight trucks have to drive right through heavily residential areas and elementary and middle school zones to get across the river. This bridge has been needed for a long time. The growth that the opposition is trying to prevent has already occurred, and now they are just trying to hold back the infrastructure long enough to frustrate people to move away. It's all about resisting change and being unwilling to share one of the most beautiful parts of the world with newcomers. The government is not silencing the voice of the people. 99 percent of the people want this bridge, know they are the majority, and see no reason to speak up. The small pocket of resistance is trying to be the squeaky wheel that gets the grease.

As someone who lives 2 miles from the proposed bridge I can tell you that there is no need for this bridge to be built. The existing bridge is 4 lanes and the only limitations it suffers are from the intersections on either side. There is some traffic to and from Stuart due to the Florida Turnpike interchange in Palm City.

What is needed are improvements to the intersections at the current bridge and a new turnpike interchange on Kanner Highway, south of Palm City..

This is just another example of pork! The money is there so let's use it whether it is needed or not. What we all need to remember is that although it is NOT Obama's money, he (or his puppets) will insist that it is needed and have it built anyway.

I the major issue here is traffic instead of proposing new infrastructure why not propose an incentive program for carpooling and propose a no through zone with penalties in the residential areas for freight trucks etc. This plan is a win win, you are eliminating the need for another bridge while preserving the delicate florida environment and let the corporations pay fines for those drivers who take shortcuts through your neighborhoods. In the short term yes this plan will provide much needed jobs but in the long term surely be a huge tax burden for upkeep and maintenance not to mention the upkeep and maintenance on the existing bridge.

In 2004, hurricanes Frances and Jeanne made landfall in Sewalls Point, directly east of the Stuart-Palm City area. If they had been cat 4 or 5 storms the current Palm City Bridge would not have accomodated everyone who was trying to escape from Hutchison Island and Stuart. Your correspondent was on the bridge at 5.45pm and called it rush hour. Locals will tell you "rush hour" is between the high school letting out and the shift workers getting off duty around 3-3.30pm. Part of the video was shot weeks or months ago. We are in dire drought conditions and haven't seen rain in weeks.

Wow what a lopsided story. It seems like the Ms. Boudreau set out to make a point and searched long and hard to find those that would support her point. She Interviewed 3 people and showed video of a 4th on person on one side of the story. Yet there was only one short bit of input, from one person with an opposing point of view. Now who's voices are no longer being heard? Hmmm

Once again we have lost our focus on smart growth for Martin County. We should be spending money on jobs for residents. We need to do a lot more to attract area business to our community. You can still have growth and maintain the small-town neighborhood atmosphere that we all appreciate. There is a lot of opportunity on the outskirts of town.

I would much rather see my neighbor working and houses selling than spending that much money for a bridge. Without jobs, we will not be able to support the housing development that exists today.

Being from south Florida, people in Martin County have know idea what traffic is like, but then again we know what this bridge is all about. It is all about development in Western Martin and the Airport. at the expense of the citizens of Martin. You can always tell who isn't planning to stay in Martin those who want to pillage the land/County we all have heard the (Steve Miller Band) COME ON TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN.
The local politicians who wish to decimate and ravage a beautiful county and leave with the bucks, and the residents of this county continue to re-elect them, we'll what will the development attorneys and engineering firms do for money after they've built out to lake Okeechobee? I guess they will have enough money to move somewhere else. Maybe the county should spend it on our sorry roads and pave the unpaved roads in Martin, what a novel Idea, Create more work and spend far less money and be useful, Na, makes to much sense.

I live in Palm CIty and the opposition to this bridge is a great example of NIMBY. Not In My BackYard.

NIMBYs want to close the door but only after they are in. I am one of the homeowners whose house passing traffic will be reduced because of the bridge. Long lines of traffic forming and stopping right outside our home.

We need the bridge. Stop the NIMBYs.

I completely agree that the Martin County bridge sounds like a very, very bad idea on many levels.
I do, however, wonder why the bridge in Missouri was presented as a waste of stimulus money. If that bridge had collapsed and killed people, the nation would be outraged that it had been neglected for so long. Much lip service is given to the value and importance of small towns, but when it comes time to distribute money, they are marginalized and considered low priority. Kudos to the Missouri DOT for getting this project started so quickly, and shame on the mayor of St. Louis for behaving as though jobs in the city are more important than safety in the country. If this dilapidated bridge was in Georgia, and CNN employees had to cross it every day on the way to work, I imagine the story would have been presented very differently.

Saturday, May 09, 2009

RE: WATCHING YOUR MONEY-CNN SPECIAL INVESTIGATION

I understand the theory behind watching your money; however, your people are making a joke of some real issues.

These reporters have a job. The people in the Appalachians, small towns, and the jobless don’t think it is funny.

I live in a city that you can not get from north to south without having to go through going across the entire city. This issue has been under study for years. This city is Toledo, Maumee, Holland and other cities in this area of Ohio.

Come here and live and maybe you will understand these issues. You travel through a city on a rainy day when traffic is slow. Come back another day when the situation is different then your view might change.

If you want to follow an issue that will get your goat; stand and watch the mail carrier drive down my sub-division. He stops at every house, drops the mail gets back in his truck and continues this process throughout the area. These homes are less than 100 feet line to line.

Again, I believe that many people are getting jobs as a result of these “Shovel Ready” projects. You do not really understand that people are really hurting out here. And it is time that the “The Left Behind People” get parity.

CNN is one of my favorite channels to watch but you show no humility in your reporting on this issue. What is your salary?

This is also happening in Tulsa Ok.!! We have been fighting the building of a toll bridge for 4 years. The Ok Supreme Court voted in a 9-0 decision that we were right to not allow this toll bridge to be built. Now the Creek Nation Indian Tribe is going to build it. Because they can put this money into a trust and because of a tribal law they trump the local and state government. It is an incredible mess and has been for 4 years! Please email me if you would like to speak to our spokesperson. We are a group of citizens 5000 + strong and fought city hall and won...all for not now that the Indian Nation is taking this over. We are still proceeding with letters to the Bureau of Indian Affairs so the story is just beginning again! Our mayor put money into her request for the stimulus package for this bridge to be buitl as well because she said it was shovel ready....when the citizens went crazy over it she pulled it from her request.

I am very disappointed with CNN in its investigation report on the Martin County Florida’s Palm City Bridge aired on the CNN news last night (5/9/09). The research the CNN team performed on this bridge was inaccurate and unfair. I live near this bridge and I know what a hardship it is to the thousands of working people who have to navigate it daily.

Here’s where CNN's report failed:
1. They missed showing the almost a mile of traffic backup that occurs and is growing every morning during rush-hours on the biggest West-to-East thoroughfare in Martin County called Monterey Blvd.
2. They made it sound like Palm City is a little no-where town but it’s a suburb of Stuart which is one of the fastest growing towns in Florida, sandwiched between the very large Palm Beach County and the nation’s fastest growing St Lucie County.
3. They failed to take into account that Martin County has one of highest unemployment rates in Florida that will benefit from the bridge’s estimated 35 hundred jobs.
4. They failed to take into account that this area is ramping up to be one of the nation’s centers of medical research with the new Scripts Labs and other medical technology giants moving in just a few miles north-west of Palm City.
5. They failed to take into account that a healthy real estate development program in western Martin and St Lucie counties is in danger of being choked off by the existing bridge.
6. CNN’s reporters fell victim to a few outspoken wealthy, retired residents and vacation home owners who are adamantly opposed to the bridge because of its potential for growth in the area.

As a fulltime resident of Palm City I would like to strongly refute CNN’s report on the Palm City Bridge and urge Florida and the Federal Government to support this bridge.

I have one more beef about CNN. In last night’s report they prided themselves in helping to stop funding for a live Polar Bear zoo and a water-slide park. I think this is also bad judgment on their part. Zoos and parks such as these create jobs and help the environment and towns. They also provide healthy places for not only American families to have fun and to spend money but, for foreign travelers who love to come to this country and bring in dollars from other countries. Tourism is one of America’s most profitable businesses.

The Fed should draw up a list of criteria that can be used to determine good stimulus funding candidates. I think things like zoos and parks that draw American families and foreign tourists should listed among the good stimulus candidates.

John James
Palm City, Florida
hikerjohn@comcast.net

I've been following your investigative reporting on the gun crimes in Chicago, I understand the don't snitch and code of silence problem created with in the inner cities.
I've also read most of the comments from viewers and what I'm hearing is something that is universal, that everyone is in agreement on what some of the hard core problems seem to be, but at the same time no ones seems to have a solution.

If we go back forty even fifty years we will fine that there was a drug problem, some youths & adults were carrying guns using and selling drugs, but compared to today it was on a much smaller scale, so then the question becomes how & why?.

The problem is in fact all of the above that is all the views & opinions of your readers, but whats missing then that would help bring about a solution? the million dollar question. We know that they have a gang task force the police department drug & gang programs and committees to over see all of this, but again why does it seem that nothing working.

I believe that I have some ideas, I am a motivational speaker I've just left my job of ten years and at the request of many and have now started my own company, Mighty Moe- Empowerment Speaking And Consulting. To me whats missing is the ability to connect with the youth of today, to say that one is a professional with a degree so now qualifies them & gives them the tools that will be needed to reach the minds of are trouble youth, I believe we are still left short of what is fully needed to address the problem head on with any kind of success.

There is a way to meet this problem head we talk about the home and proper parenting, new laws gun control, better school programs, and on & on.
But what I see as the bigger problem is a communities that is divided a home that is divided a government that is divided and a world that is divided, like the bible says a divided hose cannot & will not stand against adversity.

So my questions is ? who will stand up and speak for the children of the world, who is truly willing to step out front and take on their woes, were is that someone?

Thank you Abbie and CNN for covering the story of over 36 student deaths in Chicago alone this year. I live in a middle class NE community , but I think the nation should give extreme priority to this issue over HI Ni virus's, banking issues, and politics when young people around the country and in cities east and west aren't even safe to step outside their youth centers, neighborhoods or schools . At least CNN is willing to cover and expose the story. Why aren't the other stations and networks drawing attention to this outrage and cruelest of epidemics in America.? Continue the exposure to save the future generations and their famililies from such pain and needless suffering.

It is very poor reporting on the part of CNN and Fox for not doing their homework. They spoke to a few disgruntled residents who didn't take the time to research the property or the county prior to purchase.
Mr. Smith moved into town in late 2000 – 17 years after the bridge site was approved. He has opposed the bridge from day one. He even ran for county commission with a one-item campaign- NO BRIDGE. Who asked him?
In 1987 this county approved the Indian Street Bridge. The main description of the bridge is:
1. linking Stuart at Indian Street and Kanner Highway to Palm City and through to the Florida Turnpike will relieve congestion along the Palm City Bridge corridor,
2. ease hurricane evacuation and
3. improve emergency response time.
Talk to the Chamber of Commerce(s), Real Estate Association, EOC, the other 4 county commissioners, FDOT, life-time residents (not a bunch of newbies) and then report...but you spoke to none.

Excellent site, keep up the good work

Excellent blog this siu.blogs.cnn.com well done and I was really pleased to discover : this it's just what I needed to know.
It's taken me literally 2 hours and 30 minutes of searching the web to find siu.blogs.cnn.com (joke)
But seriously I am really interested in Homes normally and so I shall be very pleased to become a regular visitor

Best Regards