Word: miami
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
What's still alarming in states like Florida is the frequency of hit-and-run deaths. Most U.S. counties see only a handful of them each year; but Miami-Dade County in the past decade has seen as many as 46, a good number of them taking the lives of children like Ashley. It's partly due to a mind-set that views pedestrians as nuisances. To crack down on that way of thinking, Risete, Ashley's mother, has pushed for a number of measures in Florida - including the Ashley Nicole Valdes Alert System in Miami-Dade, which notifies...
...school zones. Florida's cash-strapped school districts have had to cut back on bus service for students in recent years, forcing more children to walk to school - and prodding state officials to discover how little access those kids have to safe crosswalks and sidewalks in many Florida cities. (Miami drivers are also notorious for carelessly parking their cars on sidewalks near schools, forcing children into the streets.) The state's Safe Routes to School program has been a particular success in that regard...
Ashley Nicole Valdes was a smart, pretty 11-year-old girl who often cared for her younger, mentally disabled sister while their single mother studied to be a paramedic. In January, while crossing the street to get to her home west of Miami, Ashley was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver in a pickup truck - and became a heart-wrenching symbol of South Florida's notoriously reckless car culture. "You see all these people getting run over and you ask yourself: What's happened to us as people here?" says Ashley's mother, Adonay Risete. "We need...
...hugging Floridians are seeing perhaps the most convincing evidence yet that they need an attitude adjustment. A study by the nonprofit Transportation for America in Washington, D.C., lists the most dangerous metropolitan areas for pedestrians, and the worst four just happen to be in the Sunshine State: Orlando, Tampa, Miami and Jacksonville. It may seem like an astonishing find, but it's not actually all that surprising: 490 pedestrians were killed by cars in Florida last year, the most in any state, and South Florida consistently ranks as one of the worst pockets for hit-and-run fatalities...
...Most of the federal stimulus money is disbursed via states and counties, and the outlook for minorities does seem better once the dollars reach more local levels. Miami-Dade County's Public Works Department has kept its so far $25 million worth of stimulus projects relatively small, and therefore more accessible to minority contractors, to ensure its own 10% DBE participation goal. On some projects Miami-Dade has even 100% DBE involvement. For now, the county is using what stimulus money it can earmark for transit purposes to purchase a fleet of BRT (bus rapid transit) buses that will...