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The Miami Downtown Development Authority, in partnership with the City of Miami, Miami-Dade County and the Health Foundation of South Florida, launched a $500,000 project called Complete Streets, which includes the creation of a dedicated bike lane in downtown Miami along Southeast/Southwest First Street into a multimodal corridor.
The pilot initiative entails a high visibility bike lane, bus lane, enhanced crosswalks, new plants, and public art. Work will be conducted at night and is expected to take around six weeks.
One interesting tidbit with the project is there will now only be one lane for cars, down from three, to make room for the two transit lanes in an area that’s heavily congested during rush hour.
Upon completion, the Complete Street team will then seek to identify other streets in need. The following have already been bookmarked for consideration:
- Northeast First Avenue
- Miami Avenue
- Northeast/Northwest Fifth Street
- Northeast/Northwest Sixth Street
A recent DDA study found 60 percent of those who live close to downtown Miami and nearly half of those who live 10 miles away say they would bike to work if they had access to the proper facilities and infrastructure.
“Downtown Miami has experienced explosive growth over the past 10 years, and while this momentum has brought the urban core to life – it has also magnified the reality that our city is growing faster than its infrastructure has kept up,” said Miami DDA Executive Director Alyce Robertson. “This Complete Streets pilot program has the potential to redesign our city streets to offer mobility options, so they prioritize people and community over cars and congestion.”