DOT, you’ve turned a highway into a toll booth with a padlock on it.
The I-95 Express Lanes were sold to us like a miracle cure for traffic — just pay a toll and you’d glide like a pelican down a smooth stretch of open road. Instead, what do we get? Orange cones, lane closures, flashing signs that look more confused than the drivers reading them, and enough crashes in the “express” lanes to keep the tow truck business booming.
Let’s call it what it is: a tax on misery. We pay, we wait, and we wonder who exactly is cashing the checks. Meanwhile, Broward County drivers are stuck in traffic while “maintenance” keeps the lanes closed for hours every day. Open lanes 70% of the time? Every minute we sit burning gas and losing time is money flushed straight out of Florida’s growth.
And here’s the real kicker: safety. Drivers darting in and out of broken markers like squirrels on caffeine. Crashes piling up because the design rewards impatience more than caution. Families pay in bent metal and broken bones while the state pats itself on the back for “managing congestion.”
It’s time folks stop just grumbling at the wheel and start writing letters. Run to Sanchez — yes, Governor DeSantis — and tell him the truth: these lanes are bleeding our wallets, choking our economy, and putting lives at risk. If Florida’s express lanes were a business, they’d have been shut down long ago for false advertising.
The governor needs to hear it from more than the traffic reports. He needs to hear it from us — the drivers, the taxpayers, the very people stuck fuming in the so-called “fast lane.” Because unless Tallahassee fixes this mess, we’ll keep paying tolls for the privilege of sitting still. This the very definition of foolishness.
There is a call to action letters for you to send to governor Desantis at the bottom of this post.
Call the Governor — Say it plain:
Governor Ron DeSantis
The Capitol
400 S. Monroe St.
Tallahassee, FL 32399-0001
Phone: (850) 717-9337State of Florida
Email: [email protected]
Sample Message
Governor DeSantis:
I’m fed up with the I-95 Express Lanes in Dade and Broward County—so often closed that they’re only “express” in name. We’re stuck in traffic, burning gas, losing time, and risking safety while still paying tolls. This is hurting Florida’s economy and endangering residents.
Please take immediate action to:
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Improve availability and safety of the I-95 Express Lanes,
-
Provide transparent reporting on closures, repair costs, and toll revenue,
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Ensure toll funds are reinvested into safety and operations of the corridor.
Sincerely,
[Your Name], [City]
There are larger more complete letters at the bottom of this post.
Now let’s get back to the stats for you fact oriented deep divers.
Here are the best on-the-record numbers for the I-95 Express Lanes between Miami and Fort Lauderdale, straight from FDOT’s own performance reports and Florida law.
Open vs. closed hours (recent months)
FDOT’s monthly “95 Express Performance” reports publish facility availability by direction. Converting those percentages to hours:
June 2025 (30 days = 720 h) (95 Express)
- Northbound: open ≈ 560.2 h, closed ≈ 159.8 h (52 non-recurring closures, avg 24 min; 27 planned closures, avg 5.2 h). (95 Express)
- Southbound: open ≈ 688.3 h, closed ≈ 31.7 h (32 non-recurring, 24 min avg; 6 planned, 3.1 h avg). (95 Express)
July 2025 (31 days = 744 h) (95 Express)
- Northbound: open ≈ 509.3 h, closed ≈ 234.7 h (69 non-recurring, 58 min avg; 22 planned, 7.6 h avg). (95 Express)
- Southbound: open ≈ 720.9 h, closed ≈ 23.1 h (30 non-recurring, 20 min avg; 6 planned, 2.2 h avg). (95 Express)
These numbers line up with the closure counts/durations published in each report’s “Equipment Availability & Closure Events” panel (I used the report’s percentages and the month length to compute hours). (95 Express)
Why is northbound so bad lately? FDOT’s FY23–24 annual report explains Phase 3 construction in Broward left parts of Segment 3 operating as one lane with many planned night closures, cratering availability there. (Segment 3 was open only ~70.8% of the time that year due mostly to 373 planned construction events.) (95 Express)
Who collects the tolls and where the money goes
- Who bills you: Florida’s Turnpike Enterprise (FTE) processes SunPass transactions for the 95 Express gantries and bills customers. (95 Express)
- Who keeps the revenue: By Florida law, tolls from state-owned express lanes are FDOT revenues. First call on those dollars is operations, maintenance, and improvements of the express lanes and associated systems. Remaining revenue must be spent in the same county/counties on state roads or to support express-bus service on the facility. In other words: the money stays with the state/FDOT for O&M and local improvements—not the counties or federal government. (Online Sunshine)
How much money are we talking about?
FDOT’s more recent public performance reports stopped publishing dollar revenue by facility, but the last older reports that did include it show scale:
- FY 2013–2014: ~$21 million in toll revenue. (SunGuide.info)
- FY 2014–2015: $26+ million in toll revenue (about a 25% YoY jump). (95 Express)
(For current, facility-specific revenue, FDOT indicates those figures are handled through FTE and its finance office; modern public summaries don’t break out 95 Express dollars. A public-records request for the “monthly toll gantry reports” would give you the exact, recent receipts by segment.) (Florida’s Turnpike)
What does maintenance actually cost?
You asked about the dollars behind “putting up/taking down signs,” painting/maintaining markers, and cleaning crash debris:
- Express-lane marker (the flexible posts) unit cost: FDOT’s statewide maintenance pay-item summary lists **“Delineator, Flexible High Performance 36″ (Managed Lanes – Express Lane Marker)” at $76.72 each (2024 summary). That’s just the item price; labor and lane-closure traffic control are extra pay items. (FDOT Blob Storage)
- How many markers get replaced: After FDOT tightened spacing to curb lane-diving, Segment 1’s average monthly marker replacements settled around ~469 (big drop from pre-2016). If you priced only the parts at today’s statewide average, that’s roughly $36k/month in materials—before labor and traffic-control costs. (95 Express)
- Debris pickup/incident response: These are handled by Road Rangers/asset-maintenance contractors under lump-sum and task-order contracts; the public performance reports show counts/response times but not per-incident dollars. (Annual TSM&O reports show the program scope and that EL tubular-marker repair and ITS maintenance are included.) Precise dollar breakdowns for “crash clean-ups” would require the specific contract ledgers via a records request. (SunGuide.info)
Bottom line
- In recent months, NB availability between Miami↔Fort Lauderdale has been hit hard (hundreds of closed hours per month) due to Phase 3 construction in Broward; SB availability is typically in the mid- to high-90% range. (95 Express)
- All tolls are state (FDOT) revenues: they pay for O&M first, and any remainder must fund local road projects or express-bus service on that same corridor—in the same counties. Counties/feds aren’t pocketing the tolls. (Online Sunshine)
- Historical annual toll revenue was $21–26M a decade ago; modern reports don’t publish the current dollars by facility publicly, but they exist in FDOT/FTE finance systems and can be obtained via records request. (SunGuide.info, 95 Express, Florida’s Turnpike)
Miami → Fort Lauderdale (Northbound) and Fort Lauderdale → Miami (Southbound)
(Operating hours are 24/7. Hours = days in month × 24. “Availability” is from FDOT’s Monthly Mobility Reports.)
| Month | Hours in month | NB availability | NB open hrs | NB closed hrs | SB availability | SB open hrs | SB closed hrs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-08 | 744 | 73.3% | 545.4 | 198.6 | 55.0% | 409.2 | 334.8 |
| 2024-09 | 720 | 76.8% | 553.0 | 167.0 | 72.2% | 519.8 | 200.2 |
| 2024-10 | 744 | 75.2% | 559.5 | 184.5 | 72.6% | 540.1 | 203.9 |
| 2024-11 | 720 | 75.3% | 542.2 | 177.8 | 72.8% | 524.2 | 195.8 |
| 2024-12 | 744 | 81.9% | 609.3 | 134.7 | 77.5% | 576.6 | 167.4 |
| 2025-01 | 744 | 73.2% | 544.6 | 199.4 | 71.9% | 534.9 | 209.1 |
| 2025-02 | 672 | 74.4% | 500.0 | 172.0 | 73.5% | 493.9 | 178.1 |
| 2025-03 | 744 | 66.0% | 491.0 | 253.0 | 95.5% | 710.5 | 33.5 |
| 2025-04 | 720 | 65.6% | 472.3 | 247.7 | 91.6% | 659.5 | 60.5 |
| 2025-05 | 744 | 78.5% | 584.0 | 160.0 | 95.8% | 712.8 | 31.2 |
| 2025-06 | 720 | 77.8% | 560.2 | 159.8 | 95.6% | 688.3 | 31.7 |
| 2025-07 | 744 | 68.5% | 509.6 | 234.4 | 96.9% | 720.9 | 23.1 |
Source for monthly availability percentages: FDOT 95 Express Monthly Mobility Reports (Aug 2024 → Jul 2025). (95 Express)
Quick read: Northbound (Miami → Fort Lauderdale) saw the heaviest construction/closure impact over the year (several months with ~170–250 closed hours). Southbound was mostly available (>90%) in spring/summer 2025 after major work tapered off.
“How much is spent on markers, signs, paint, and clean-ups?”
Exact line-item dollars for the I-95 Express corridor aren’t broken out in the public mobility reports. They’re typically paid through FDOT Asset Maintenance and construction contracts and show up as unit-price “pay items” or in lump-sum maintenance invoices. A few hard numbers you can bank on:
- Express Lane Marker (“ELM”, 36″) unit price: FDOT’s statewide 2023 maintenance pay-item summary shows $76.72 each (pay item 0705-11-5), with 5,677 units totaling $435,522 that year (statewide across contracts). (FDOT Blob Storage)
- Historical FDOT maintenance reports list similar items (often ~$95 each in earlier years), showing the order of magnitude for marker replacement. (Florida Department of Transportation)
- How many markers get replaced? After FDOT upgraded the markers in 2016–17, average replacements dropped to ~298 per month on Phase 1 (down from ~4,030/month before), per FDOT’s marker performance memo. That’s the best official count trend available. (95 Express)
- Thermoplastic pavement marking (managed-lane dotted/skip lines) unit costs: FDOT publishes historical averages (by market area). For example, recent statewide averages show thermoplastic items ranging from ~$2–$6 per linear foot depending on width/type; specific managed-lane dotted markings appear in the historical item cost tables as well. (Exact unit varies by spec.) (FDOT Blob Storage)
- Who pays to pick up crash debris, cones/markers, etc.? That work is covered under FDOT Asset Maintenance (AM) contracts — performance-based, mostly lump-sum. FDOT’s 2024 maintenance pay-item summary shows tens of millions in periodic payments across districts (not corridor-specific), which is where those activities are funded. (FDOT Blob Storage, Florida Department of Transportation)
Bottom line on costs: the unit prices above (e.g., ~$77 per express-lane marker) are public and auditable. The corridor-specific totals (e.g., “how many markers were replaced on I-95 Express this month and how much did it cost?” or “hours and invoices for sign ops/debris pickup”) are obtainable via a Public Records Request to FDOT District 6 (Miami-Dade), District 4 (Broward), and Florida’s Turnpike Enterprise.
“Who’s the big bandit making the money?”
- Collector / Back-office: Florida’s Turnpike Enterprise (FTE) consolidates tolls and bills customers for the 95 Express gantries. It’s a unit of the State of Florida (FDOT) — there’s no private concessionaire taking a profit cut on 95 Express. (95 Express)
- Where the toll dollars go (by law): Florida Statutes say tolls must first pay for operation, maintenance, and improvement of the express-lane project. Any remaining revenue must be used on transportation projects or transit that benefit the express lanes within the same county/counties where the tolls were collected (including support for express bus service on the facility). In short: money stays in the corridor/region; not the federal government, and not a random slush fund. (Online Sunshine)
- Examples of actual revenue figures: FDOT’s older annual reports give corridor totals (recent reports emphasize operations but still note trip counts and FTE’s role).
• FY 2013–14: ~$20.8M in toll revenue. (95 Express)
• FY 2014–15: >$26M in toll revenue. (95 Express)
(Current, facility-specific revenue is tracked by FTE; the public ACFR aggregates systemwide finances.)
Here’s a sample complaint letter you could send. It’s written in a way that’s firm but respectful, so it comes across as a serious grievance rather than a rant:
Sample Letter to the Governor
The Honorable Ron DeSantis
Governor of the State of Florida
400 S. Monroe Street
Tallahassee, FL 32399
Dear Governor DeSantis,
I am writing to express my deep frustration with the ongoing problems on the I-95 Express Lanes between Miami and Fort Lauderdale. Far too often, these lanes are closed for maintenance, construction, or cleanup, leaving drivers stuck in traffic for an extra 30 minutes to an hour. This is not just inconvenient—it is a direct cost to the millions of residents and businesses who rely on this corridor every day.
The public was told that these lanes would relieve congestion and improve travel times, but when they are closed a third of the time, the opposite happens. Taxpayers are forced to sit in traffic while still paying tolls, fuel costs, and lost productivity. It is especially frustrating to see constant sign changes, marker replacements, and lane clean-ups that seem never-ending, with no transparency about the true costs.
We deserve to know: how many hours each month the lanes are actually open, how much is being spent on maintenance and repairs, and exactly where the toll revenues are going. Right now, it feels like drivers are being asked to pay into a system that does not deliver on its promises.
I respectfully urge your office to investigate these issues and hold FDOT accountable for making the express lanes reliable, transparent, and truly beneficial to Florida drivers.
Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[City, FL]
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