MIAMI – Mayor Tomas Regalado and Commissioner Marc Sarnoff are accusing the Florida Department of Transportation of employing “bait and switch” tactics in its efforts to replce the obsolete I-395 overpass here.
The two city officials filed suit in Miami-Dade Circuit Court against the state DOT to stop the agency from using a cheaper, plain vanilla design for the new span that they charge was promised to be a dramatic suspension bridge. The new bridge is intended to help spur redevelopment along Biscayne Boulevard and mitigate social and economic damage done to adjacent Overtown by the construction of the original span, which split and isolated the mostly black community, according to the Miami Herald.
Sarnoff and Regalado argue that city officials and neighborhood groups were duped into approving the more elaborate bridge plan, and that they would never have approved the design now being proposed by FDOT.
The lawsuit contends that U.S. law requires FDOT to show their plan has local approval in order to qualify for federal funding for the highway project. Since the local approval was based on a different design, they argue, FDOT's revised project should not qualify for federal money. The suit is seeking an injunction from a judge to force FDOT to adhere to its original design plan. See story in the Miami Herald.
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