Miami news, Miami local news

The first Nikki Beach resort, which is located in Turks and Caicos, recently closed after its developer Leeward Resort LTD entered receivership.

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Miami-Dade County welcomes its very first Miami casino. Churchill Downs and Calder Race Course broke ground on Wednesday, June 3rd on a 104,000 square-foot facility.

The gambling facility will feature 1,225 slot machines, three restaurants and valet parking. The  Miami casino will open next year right before the Super Bowl which will be played in the nearby LandShark Stadium. Miami-Dade will now join its neighboring Broward County which already features slot machines at tracks and Seminole Indian Miami casinos.

Miami Beach is one of the top travel destinations. Now, visitors with disabilities can use special disabled parking permits to park their vehicles. Look up more information on our Guide of Miami Beach. Most Miami hotels and restaurants provide readily accessible ramps for wheelchairs. For decades, the City of Miami Beach has focused a considerable amount of energy on making sure that Miami Beach has accessible beaches on a wheelchair and by all.

These accessible beaches on a wheelchair efforts have proven to be very successful. Accessing the beach by wheel chair is not easy but the City of Miami Beach took care of that by building ramps specially designed to make the beach easily open and available to all.

Hereunder is some information from a Guide of Miami Beach:

Crandon Beach - Cabana Rentals
4000 Crandon Blvd.
Key Biscayne, FL
Voice/TDD
786/336-6982

Haulover Beach
18000 Collins Ave.
N. Miami Beach, FL
Voice/TDD
786/336-6990

10th St. and 72nd St. Beaches
Miami Beach

For more information about ADA services in Miami and Miami Beach please call Miami-Dade County at 305-375-3566 or Miami Beach at 305-673-7080

Today is another new beginning for Miami-Dade’s northbound I-95. Drivers will be introduced to a new traffic system on some of the busiest sections of I-95. Drivers will no longer be able to dive freely into expressway traffic. Now, they must wait for a green light at the entrance ramp to merge in during rush hours. These traffic signals will await motorists at eight different northbound I-95 ramps between NW 62nd Street and the Golden Glades interchange.

This new addition to the driving system is meant to ultimately manage congestion and ease any merging madness on this very busy Florida expressway. This, much like the implementation of the new northbound toll lanes, will require some adjustment. Drivers should pay extra attention when entering I-95 as the new traffic signals create a huge potential for rear-end collisions.

Drivers that are not used to red lights on an interstate ramp may not stop and end up rear-ending drivers ahead of them that obey that traffic signal. Florida Highway Patrols hope that, like the new I-95 toll lanes, people will come to understand the purpose of the traffic signals and adjust after some initial chaos and confusion. A trooper will be set up at every traffic signaled ramp to enforce the new regulation. Violators may face penalties including a $160 ticket and three points on their license. Ramp backups will be monitored by sensors under the ramps and expressway lanes as well as surveillance cameras. When ramps get too backed-up the sensors will signal to speed up entries. If you are traveling to Miami and you plan to rent a car, these traffic signals may not be foreign to you.

There are several like these that already exist in other parts of the country. If you want to avoid them, maybe you should look into Miami Beach vacation rentals and Florida vacation rentals which are within walking distance to many of Miami’s attractions.

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Though the number of carpoolers was decreasing from 1980 to 2007, the numbers recently got a little higher after gas prices rose.

About three-quarters of American workers drive alone. Soon, commuters will have an option that allows them to carpool if they decide to do so at the last minute without committing to a daily arrangement.

This is possible through an application that was made for iPhones called Avego (www.avego.com) that is connecting drivers and passengers depending on planned and desired routes.

Avego, based in Ireland, requires that drivers who are willing to offer rides to download the application and input their preferred route. Place the iPhone on the dashboard and it records your entire route and sends it to the network for potential passengers to see.

Passengers are not required to have an iPhone to use the program. They can simply go to the Avego website, call or send a text message.

Carpoolers can identify each other by photographs or PINs that are used to authorize transactions. Passengers are charge 30 cents per mile, of which 85% goes to the driver and 15% goes to Avego.

All payments are made through automated online accounting. Avego will take some time to establish an abundant collection of passengers and drivers.

Currently, there is a similar iPhone application called Carticipate (www.carticipate.com).

This matching-service application was released in October and already has over 10,000 downloads. Drivers interested in carpooling register and set up a profile for other people with iPhones to search and find them.

Europeans commuting from one country to another find Carticipate very useful as it is much cheaper than a train ride. If you are on vacation yourself and have an iPhone, you may rent a car in Miami and everything works the same.

Miami is taking steps to become a bike-friendly city.

City leaders recently approved a plan that strives to achieve that by 2012. Get ready to get those dusty bikes out of your garage or rent a bike in Miami and start practicing.

You may not forget how to ride a bike but you definitely get rusty.

Commission Chairman Joe Sanchez wants bike routes to be included in all street plans for here-on-out. A bike coordinator will join the transportation department.

Meanwhile, the city is working with Miami Parking Authority to create 24 bike parking areas.

The bike-friendly Miami action plan is made up of four points:

• Construct a set of bike paths

• Improve bike safety through education and outreach plans

• Develop a bike master plan

• Implement a practice of assessing and advancing bicycle proposals

Don’t miss the opportunity of enjoying a bike-friendly city, ask your Miami hotel front-desk where you can locate bike rentals in Miami. You can also ask to your Miami Beach vacation rental agency. In fact, some Miami Beach vacation rentals agencies provide bikes as a complementary service.

Enjoy the Miami video of the week! We share the free videos of Miami that we feel are representative of what the city is all about. Miami Vice was instrumental in bringing Miami back as a top tourist destination; therefore, here it is a flash back…

Laurent Harari is a fine art landscape, nature and travel photographer, native of Paris, France with residence in Miami, Florida.

At an early age Laurent Harari developed a love for art photography, mostly of landscapes and nature fine art pictures. For the past fifteen years, Laurent Harari has traveled to remote places all around the world to continue to inspire his art photography.

Laurent Harari has primarily sold his fine art pictures to private art collectors in the U.S., France, Switzerland, Spain, Italy, Chile, and Argentina. Laurent Harari is currently preparing a photograph book and selling his fine art pictures in festivals and exhibitions throughout the U.S.

Apart from his book, this local Miami professional art photographer has launched a new website, buyphotoarts.com, where people interested in to invest in photo arts can access his art pictures. We specially recommend his landscapes art pictures collection where you will find amazing Florida Everglades photos. Additionally, to his landscapes photos he has an exquisite selection of cityscape pictures in which you will have access to fabulous pictures of Miami and other popular cities.

Miami Florida was ranked the city with most beautiful people according to an online survey of “America’s Favorite Cities” by Travel + Leisure magazine. The city of Miami is considered one of the US cities with most beautiful people, so if you live in Miami Florida you can think of yourself as one of the most attractive people in the country.

This is not the first time that our fabulous city is top ranked among the cities with most beautiful people. However, many Miami residents don’t realize this until they travel around and when they come back, they just notice what they have, according with Bill Talbert, president of the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Walking around Miami Beach and South Beach, you can easily realize that we are packed with beautiful people. South Beach girls are world-known for their beauty and great bodies. All this can be due to our fantastic weather and beaches, which motive most of us to keep on track with our diets and worry a little bit more about how we look. When in Miami, it is not rare to see South Beach girls and models look alike walking through our popular beach sidewalks and, of course, Lincoln Road. For those interested in discovering the best of our beautiful residents and visitors, there are many Miami hotels and South Beach vacation rentals around Lincoln Road and the most popular beaches.

Calendar of Miami Events 2008

September / October / November / December

Recently, the Miami-Dade County Commission passed an ordinance that will enable hundreds of county employees to receive domestic partnership benefits. This ordinance will allow those who work for the Miami-Dade County to extend their health coverage to their unmarried partners and children. In addition to health care coverage, the ordinance gives domestic partners and their children visitation rights at hospitals, county jails and juvenile detention facilities.

According to Miami-Dade County’s managers, it will cost $1.3 million a year if 600 domestic partners are enrolled. So far, 900 county employees have filed for domestic partnership benefits.

This is a big victory for gay rights organizations such as Equality Florida and SAVE Dade. It was around time that something like this happened in South Florida. We have to remember South Florida has an important gay community who has positively influenced our economy.

Calendar of Miami Events 2008

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