Showing posts with label BCS Championship. Show all posts
Showing posts with label BCS Championship. Show all posts

Thursday, October 30, 2008

re SFRTA Transit Workshop in Miami-Dade on Nov. 14



Above is the information I've previously mentioned about the upcoming SFRTA/Tri-Rail Workshop in Miami-Dade County on Friday November 14th at the Miami-Dade Expressway office located at 3790 N.W. 21st Street, across the street from Tri-Rail’s Miami Airport Tri-Rail Station.

Workshops are scheduled to begin in the Boardroom at 8:30 a.m. and end around 12:30, and parking is available at the Tri-Rail lot across the street.


Information is available online at http://www.tri-rail.com/announcements.htm.

RSVP at (954) 788-7958



At the August 22 meeting of the SFRTA Governing Board, the professional staff was directed to plan transit workshops this fall in each of the three counties, to be followed by a "Regional Transit Summit" in January or February. The Palm Beach workshop has already been held.

The thought is that the workshops and summit will help build public momentum and support for transit in advance of the legislative session in Tallahassee.


I've already made some suggestions to some folks involved about being sure to schedule it at a time when the pols aren't too distracted by other events going on in the state where they hope to cop invites or comps to to attend, like the Daytona 500 on February 15th, the BCS Title game on January 8th, especially if the Gators are involved in the latter, as I still think they may against Texas, or, the Super Bowl in Tampa on February 1st. http://www.tampabaysuperbowl.com/

I expect that Gabriel and the folks at Transit Miami http://www.transitmiami.com/ will have a lot more to say about the workshop in Miami as the date draws near, but I did want to remind you all for the second time here that it is going to be happening within the next three weeks, so mark your calendars.


As I've expressed here more than a few times, I really wish that a TM-like grass roots organization had existed when I was growing-up down here to give the general public a lot more of a voice and a counter-weight to some of the bad decisions that were already being made regarding the Metrorail's future, since the Tri-Rail would make even more sense now if some of the places my friends and I then frequented, had possibilities of being integrated into a larger regional transit network.


When I'd come home from IU during the summer, and wanted to be able to get around sensibly and quickly, and not forever be in traffic jams on S. Dixie Highway, when I was living down near The Falls, I'd have gladly spent a few hours a week at an office somewhere, say near Dadeland or South Miami, working on strategy and outreach to make sure that the future routes in the county would be based on common sense, natural boundaries and social networking, to create more places where South Florida could interact in a relaxed atmosphere.


You know, at a minimum, be able to ride a transit system with a Metro that actually (and originally) connected MIA to the downtown area and the business/legal districts or sports arenas and stadiums, as is common sense in most other communities, but NOT the natural order of things down here.


Now that so many people who live down here have no knowledge of what the county's Metrorail was supposed to be like, or the original promises for expansion, it's easy to think that the area's inherent political apathy and backwardness were the principal reason the stations were placed where they were, rather than purely political, ethnic and labor-based decisions, back before there were single-member districts on the Dade County Commission.


Almost 13 months ago, on September 25th, back in simpler times, before the Herald's Larry Lebowitz opened so many people's eyes here with his week-long series by connecting the dots on past negligence and incompetency in Miami having real world consequences for this area's growth and sprawl, there was a Miami-Dade County Citizens Advisory Committee meeting titled "Orange Line, Phase II, North Corridor Metrorail Extension Preliminary Engineering Phase."

See http://www.miamidade.gov/transit/corridor/n_corridor/n_meeting_schedule.asp and http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/stories/2007/09/10/daily39.html


Map of Orange Line is at: http://www.loopconsulting.com/projects/mdt/images/Map.jpg


That, of course, was the very line that was supposed to be finished in 2012 and, once finished, allow U-M students to get on the Metrorail near campus and go straight to the stadium formerly known as JRS, but which I've taken to calling Chez Huizenga for short.



(It's like the way people like me, i.e. traditionalists who know something about Dolphin owner Joe Robbie's many fights with the City of Miami in general and with Miami City Manager Cesar Odio in particular, who dared Robbie to leave -which I've described in my blog- still call the stadium in North Dade, Joe Robbie Stadium. Intentionally, to draw a distinction between what it originally represented, resolve and relief for Dolphin fans, and what it has become under Wayne Huizenga -a three-ring circus.)


NOT that this helpful bit of info about the Metrorail was EVER mentioned in any of the Herald or Sun-Sentinel articles or editorials before the move from the Orange Bowl was officially announced last year by U-M President Donna Shalala, nor mentioned by the local TV talking heads on the 6 and 11 o'clock news.

Maybe if the Daily Business Review had mentioned it, they'd have said so, since the local TV folks seem to really love stealing their material without attribution, where that seemed to be especially pronounced at WFOR, News4.


Thirteen months from now, I wonder what sort of things we will all know and accept as common knowledge about this area and the pols who are making such short-sighted transit decisions for the community's future growth.
Gist for another series for Larry?

This is, if nothing else, a target-rich environment!

In case you somehow missed it originally, after months of mind-numbing research, Larry gave
readers an exhaustive and cringe-worthy 'inside' look at Miami-Dade Transit issues, in his excellent front page series, one of the best the Herald has had.

With the help of interactive multi-media http://www.miamiherald.com/multimedia/news/transit/ he reveals in minute detail the hows and whys of the myriad broken promises made to voters and riders over the years, and connects-the-dots on the corruption, cronyism and political sleight-of-hand that have found such fertile ground here, even while transparency and accountability have not.

Sort of like so many promises and deadlines I've heard in Hallandale Beach since arriving here that have fallen by the wayside.

Saturday, August 30, 2008

JT the Brick also sees Gators-Trojans in Miami for BCS Title


Written while watching USC pummel UVA at Charlottesville...

Naturally, no sooner does South Beach Hoosier post a comment yesterday about ESPN college football analyst Kirk Herbstreit making a pre-season selection of the Florida Gators and USC Trojans in the BCS Title Game, at Dolphin Stadium on January 8th, then he receives an email saying that popular FOX Sports radio host 'JT the Brick' (John Tournour) has also made that very same selection. See http://www.jtthebrick.com/home.html and http://www.talkbrick.com/

At his podcast site, JT's Rant, http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/3035015/site/21683474/ he said on Rant 161 FULL STORY that
a.) assuming the Gators beat pre-season #1 Georgia in Jacksonville on November1st, above,
and
b.) that USC beats Ohio State at the Coliseum, http://www.lacoliseum.com/ on Sept. 13th -where endzone tickets are currently going for just under $400- he likes USC to beat the Gators in January down here for the BCS title. (Did I mention that JT was based out of LA?)

He also picks West Virginia's Pat White to edge out Tim Tebow for the Heisman Trophy.

Like Herbstreit, he also said that Georgia, while very talented, would not make it to Miami in January, where there are lots and lots of UGA alums, including some NMB High School gymnastics friends of mine, who'd make the Bulldogs very welcome, indeed.
Especially if the team and its fans were based out of the Westin Diplomat Resort and Spa down the street at Hollywood Beach.

I actually had the Florida-USC prediction prior to the 2005-06 college football season for the BCS Title Game at the Rose Bowl, which turned out to be the fantastic Texas-USC clash with Vince Young playing Superman for the Longhorns.

FYI: In case you didn't know, Hollywood mayor Peter Bober is a U-T graduate, like many of my friends back in D.C., especially when I belonged to the Texas State Society.

My own family has lived continuously in the Texas Hill Country since 1855, and one of the first maxims I ever learned as a kid, in San Antonio, was one credited to legendary Longhorn football coach Darrell Royal: "Proper preparation prevents poor performance."

Friday, August 29, 2008

Herbstreit pick: Gators vs. Trojans in BCS Title Game here in Jan.


While writing out my next blog post, I was listening to ESPN's Pardon the Interruption, as is often the case.
My ears perked up when I heard Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon's interview with ESPN (and former Ohio State Buckeye) college football analyst Kirk Herbstreit say that if he had to make a prediction right now, he'd look for the Florida Gators to face the USC Trojans in the 2009 Fed Ex BCS Title Game on January 8th at Dolphin Stadium.
Orange Bowl Committee: http://www.orangebowl.org/