Miami-Dade ready for toll wars with Tallahassee over who controls Dolphin Expressway

The power struggle over Miami-Dade’s busiest toll roads looks ready for another court battle as county commissioners try to prevent a new agency from taking over State Road 836 and other expressways.

On Tuesday, commissioners voted 12 to 1 to approve a finding that Florida’s new Greater Miami Expressway Agency, or GMX, violates the state constitution.

That clears the way for a suit between Miami-Dade and the administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis to block the agency from taking over the 836 — best known as the Dolphin Expressway — and four other toll roads currently run by the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority, also known as MDX.

The commission resolution declares the GMX abolished, setting up a court fight. It is the latest escalation in a battle that stretches back a decade, when Miami-Dade lawmakers opposed MDX’s extension of toll gates along the 836, which ended toll-free stretches on the highway.

Implemented in 2014, the “Tollmageddon” change doubled MDX’s toll revenue to more than $200 million a year and fueled a string of state laws requiring the agency to lower toll rates and take other steps the agency’s board resisted.

MDX supporters claimed the effort to weaken — and then dissolve — the agency was a back-door effort to scuttle MDX’s signature project: a $1 billion extension of the 836 into West Kendall.

If the names sound similar — this fight boils down to “GMX” versus “MDX” — there are significant differences in who would control an agency that sets toll rates for some of the county’s busiest commuting routes.

Led by Miami-Dade Republicans, the Florida Legislature in 2019 passed a law abolishing the MDX, an independent toll board created by the county and state in 1996. Miami-Dade commissioners appointed five of the nine MDX board seats, with the rest filled by the governor.

That power balance is set to shift, with a new bill awaiting the governor’s signature granting DeSantis the power to name five seats on the GMX’s nine-member board.

Commissioners have so far refused to fill their GMX seats during a two-year stand-off over the law. Critics on the commission call the new agency a violation of the autonomy granted Miami-Dade under the “home rule” provision of the Florida Constitution.

“The home-rule charter was one thing we always, always the one thing we have to defend,” said Commissioner Joe Martinez, citing other efforts in Tallahassee to redo how government works in Miami-Dade. “It has been talked about every year: taking away the airport, taking away the seaport. Now you’re going to have someone from a county up north deciding what is best for us?”

Commissioner Rene Garcia, a former Republican state senator, was the one commissioner to vote against the resolution. “We are here today to because of a failure of MDX to respond to certain issues,” he said. “We’ve lost our leverage on the the new board. Because of our failure to follow state law.”

Tuesday’s discussion extended into a broader look at a central question in Miami-Dade politics: why county leaders so often seem at odds with the county’s elected representatives in Republican-controlled Tallahassee.

“I caution everyone in terms of this black-and-white, us-versus-them perspective... when it comes to our representatives from the county,” said Commissioner Raquel Regalado. “They’re as much elected as we are.”

For now, the GMX takeover is ensnared in a lawsuit MDX filed after the law passed. A state judge allowed the MDX staff to continue managing the expressway system while the suit against the Florida Department of Transportation works its way through the court system. MDX lost the latest round on appeal, and is hoping for a reversal at the Florida Supreme Court.

Tuesday’s resolution lets Miami-Dade step into the legal arena and pursue another challenge against FDOT to try and block GMX from taking over the MDX expressways.

In a statement, Republican state Rep. Bryan Avila, one of the main proponents of the creation of GMX and the dissolution of MDX, said he was surprised commissioners opted to continue fighting for an agency “that doubled toll rates on our hard-working families,” and that “they believe the laws of Florida and court rulings do not apply to them.”

This story was originally published May 4, 2021 at 8:45 PM.