Fort Lauderdale

Electric scooter rentals are likely to stay in Florida — even though some companies have started pulling their business out of other parts of the country.

The e-scooters, which grew popular on U.S. streets in 2018, have helped thousands of tourists, residents and even well-tailored businesspeople quickly get around the streets. But they’ve also drawn public safety concerns as the number of accidents kept mounting. And cities such as Fort Lauderdale, one of the first Florida cities to allow them, still are refining their rules for the two-wheeled devices, focused on safety.

Crews in Fort Lauderdale are working to repair a pipe break for the seventh time in the last month — but at least this time it isn’t sewage flooding the streets.

A contractor working in the area of Northeast Fourth Street and Seventh Avenue struck a 12-inch water main on Wednesday afternoon, which sent water flooding the streets of Victoria Park.

The City of Fort Lauderdale issued a precautionary boil water notice effective immediately to the properties in Northeast Second Street to Northeast Fifth Street between Northeast Seventh Avenue and Northeast Ninth Avenue.

Fort Lauderdale is soaked in waste after six sewage spills from decaying pipes dumped more than 126 million gallons of raw sewage directly into nearby rivers and canals over the last few weeks. That’s about the volume of 191 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

But something important has been lost in the stinking mess: Most of it isn’t actually poop or other flushed stuff. More than half of the volume flowing through the city’s crumbling sewage infrastructure is actually groundwater seeping in through the many, many cracks and holes in the aging system.

Fort Lauderdale City Commissioners voted unanimously to spend $65 million to replace part of the sewer main that broke repeatedly last month, leaving streets, yards and waterways contaminated over the holidays.

The new sewer main will run 7.5 miles underground and take 16 to 18 months to install.

The staggering number of sewer main breaks that hit Fort Lauderdale in December turned into one of South Florida’s biggest sewage spills ever: 126.9 million gallons.

That’s a mind-numbing amount of human waste, enough to fill 192 Olympic-sized pools. Some of it wound up in streets, parks and lawns, but the bulk of it wound up in the Tarpon River, where it was pumped to keep sewage from seeping into homes.

The toxic stew that’s been bubbling up on the thoroughfares of Fort Lauderdale is more than just a noxious, stinking mess.

It can kill you. Chances are it won’t, but the bacteria, parasites and viruses stirring in that toxic stew can still make you very sick, experts warn.

Hundreds of residents have been forced to watch their step as toxic sludge seeped from six sewer main breaks in Fort Lauderdale neighborhoods from Rio Vista to Victoria Park and Coral Ridge.

Describing the law as an “unnecessary and unconstitutional overreach,” cities and counties argue that an appeals court should reject a 2011 state law that threatens tough penalties if local elected officials approve gun regulations.

Fort Lauderdale city commissioners hope to attract more street performers and artists — “buskers” — to the city. 

However, instead of voting on changes to its ordinance at the last city commission meeting of the decade Tuesday night,  commissioners asked for reworked changes and deferred the matter until the new year for more discussion.

If you live between West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale, soon you’ll have a link in the middle to board a high-speed train down to Miami and eventually up to Orlando.

Boca Raton City Council members gave the green light for a new Brightline train station Tuesday night. The station will be built next door to the city’s downtown library, a few blocks west of Mizner Park.

Today’s the day Boca Raton leaders vote on the new Brightline station.

City Council members will likely approve the lease for the 1.8 acre of land next door to the city’s downtown library. They’ll also likely approve an ordinance allowing for the construction that will foster the train company’s goals of having the shiny new train station up and running by the end of next year.