MDX Expressway Extension

The Miami Dade Expressway Authority sought a 13-mile extension to State Road 836, which would extend the highway beyond the Urban Development Boundary (UDB) set by the county to protect wetlands and farms. After years of legal battles, the courts ruled against the extension out of concern for our water supply and insufficient evaluation of the environmental impacts. Not to be outdone, Gov. DeSantis and the State Administration Commission decided to go ahead with the highway extension anyway. The UDB loses again, leaving us to wonder why even use the term "Boundary"? 

Urban Sprawl and Our Urban Development Boundary

In the 1980s, the County Commissioners realized the need to prevent unlimited growth in the suburbs that was encroaching on farmland and water aquifers as well as the housing infrastructure needed to support suburbs. The Urban Development Boundary showed forward thinking planning with the need to limit the growth that developers continuously created. Every year Sierra Club Miami works with a coalition of other environmental groups to keep the Miami-Dade County Commission from allowing destructive and unnecessary development outside the UDB. Development without the infrastructure to support it (roads, water, sewage, schools, police, fire, etc) means that while one developer makes money, and the rest of us have to pay for it in higher taxes. There are many reasons to fight sprawl in Miami-Dade: protecting the Everglades, keeping your taxes lower, not letting developers run amok, limiting traffic congestion and protecting our water supply. We will continue to keep pressure on the County Commissioners to honor the boundary and instead promote infill, where we make better use of underutilized land within the UDB. If you are interested, please contact the Miami Group Chair.

NOTE: For the history and definitions of Urban Development Boundary, go to the Miami-Dade County website.