Miami-Dade Expressway Authority
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The Miami-Dade Expressway Authority (MDX) is an independent agency created in December 1994 by the State of Florida and the Miami-Dade County Commission. Since 1997, MDX has been operating and maintaining five expressways that were formerly operated by the Florida Department of Transportation: Gratigny Parkway (SR 924), Airport Expressway (SR 112), Dolphin Expressway (SR 836), Don Shula Expressway (SR 874) and Snapper Creek Expressway (SR 878). Four of the five expressways are toll roads (all except the Snapper Creek Expressway) charging drivers of automobiles $1.25 per vehicle at each toll booth ($1.00 for those using SunPass).
All MDX highways use the shield-shaped signs reserved by FDOT for toll roads (with the MDX logo (see above) attached below the "shield"). This applies even to the non-tolled Snapper Creek Expressway. Along this and any MDX route where no tolls are ahead, the TOLL in the green section of the TOLL shield is removed. In addition, all MDX highways use a uniquely-designed mileage marker. Instead of the green "MILE XX" markers most commonly seen on Interstate Highways, the five MDX expressways use blue mileage markers featuring (from top to bottom, in white): a single letter indicating the direction of travel, the State Road designation of the highway (complete with outline of the State of Florida), and two numbers separated by a horizontal line ("2" on the top, "4" on the bottom of the line represents Mile Marker 2.4 from either the southern or western end of the expressway). These markers are placed on the edge of the shoulder every 0.2 mile apart along the expressway (the Gratigny Expressway has two of these (Mile Markers 5.0 and 5.2) on a surface street near Opa-Locka on Northwest 119th Street just east of the end of its easternmost ramp).[1]
Completely funded by toll revenues, MDX has been aggressively upgrading and updating its roads over the past decade, including the ongoing Dolphin Expressway extension (the first phase is scheduled to be completed by 2007) and re-engineering of several interchanges of its two oldest expressways (the Airport and Dolphin). Long term plans include the redesign and reconstruction of longtime bottlenecks in the Shula and Dolphin Expressways, most notably the often-backed-up Killian Parkway/SR 990 interchange near Miami Dade College-Kendall Campus and the heavily congested interchange with the Palmetto Expressway (SR 826) near the extreme western end of Miami International Airport.
