Kick Ass: Selected Columns of Carl Hiaasen

The Department of Transportation has suffered through some inglorious budget screwups. In 1988, $700 million in projects had to be canceled or scaled down. Last year the department came up $116 million short for purchasing rights-of-way. The Martinez administration deserves blame for chaotic mismanagement, but at least the governor this year had the sense not to give DOT more money to lose.

It's bad enough that most projects cost millions over budget, and drag months and even years past deadline. The worst part is: By the time these roads get finished, they are already obsolete.

For example, we've been dourly forewarned that the interminable widening of I-95 will be hopelessly inadequate, and that shortly after the highway's completion motorists will again find themselves mired in truck traffic. Wonderful.

Sure, many roads already are perilously congested. And yes, some of the bridges are falling down. Is more money the answer? Not if it goes for highway projects designed to fuel more growth—because growth is the root of the problem.

Florida has too many people in too many cars, and the numbers swell by nearly 900 a day. Until we do something drastic to reverse this trend, there's no hope of having a modern, efficient road system. Government is incapable of keeping pace with such an insane migration.

Some of the projects in the doomed transportation bill undoubtedly would have improved transit, cut down on auto pollution and saved lives. Few would argue the need to widen bloody U.S. 27 in Palm Beach County.

However, prudent taxpayers might question other big-ticket items that would have received funds from the gas tax. For example, would the city of Fort Lauderdale really grind to a halt if A1A were not rebuilt to accommodate commercial development along the beach? This seems an odd priority, considering the plight of less glamorous neighborhoods where people can't even get a simple pothole patched.

Another dubious item was the state's plan to purchase the Sawgrass Expressway, which (like Metrorail) is now being called successful because it's losing fewer millions of dollars than it once did.

Having paid for the Sawgrass once (and for the criminal prosecutions that followed), Broward residents would have been forced to pay again with the gas tax, this time joined by other drivers. That's not progress, it's larceny.

If the Martinez veto ultimately means less road construction for a while, that's not so bad. The worst traffic jams in Florida are caused by road projects that never seem to end.

All of us love to drive on fast-moving, freshly paved freeways, but they don't stay that way very long. They fill up, slow down and clog. The gas tax would have accelerated, not halted, this phenomenon.

Besides, there is something to be said for sitting bumper-to-bumper and contemplating the mess we've made of this state. The real problem isn't roads, and most people know it.

Finally, a leader admits growth is choking state September 4, 1991

Last week, Lt. Gov. Buddy MacKay uttered one of the most stunning comments ever to exit the lips of a Florida politician.

"In the past," he said, "we've had a policy of trying to stimulate growth. We measured our success by the numbers of people who moved into the state. We can no longer continue to do that."

What refreshing blasphemy! Finally, somebody in elected office has the guts to admit that Florida is drowning in its own humanity.

Every crisis facing the state—water, pollution, crime, health care, traffic, and budget—is the result of too many people, too few resources and gutless leader ship. The quality of life is deteriorating in direct correlation with population growth, but until lately you could find only a handful of Florida politicians willing to come out and say so.

More was always better. To challenge that philosophy was to jeopardize hefty campaign contributions from banks, builders and utilities. Unthinkable! That's why officeholders always talk about "managing" growth instead of stopping it.

With the state government practically broke, the Chiles administration is promoting the theme of "growing smarter." Translation: Help! What do we do now!

The statistics are chilling. Each day, more than 900 people stampede to Florida, and that's not counting illegal aliens. Think of it as adding two entire cities the size of Hialeah every year.

Every day, more than 300 acres of green space are paved for shopping malls and subdivisions. Planners say that keeping up with such expansion requires two new miles of road, two new classrooms, two new prison beds, two new cops and two new schoolteachers hired each day.

In other words, there's no way to keep pace. Nine hundred newcomers a day is insane and ultimately suicidal. Stopping the flow will take imagination and a radical change in the way we promote the state.