đ Buckle Up Miami Beach, We Are Stuck Driving In Reverse
Our out of touch administration keeps taking one step forward, two steps back.
Buckle up Miami Beach, literally, because your politicians just set the stage for you to get back in your car.
Ocean Drive reopened to cars today, and by lunch, the street was already the scene of an attempted hit and run. Congratulations Mayor, Commissioners, and City Manager! What vision! What success! What legacy!Â
If that wasnât enough to ruin your Monday, last week, Mayor Gelber, alongside Commissioners Fernandez, Richardson, Meiner, Rosen Gonzalez, and Samuelian, voted to revert Washington Avenue to its pre-pandemic configuration. The city will soon remove the parking-protected bike lanes (which they so proudly touted as the first in the county), return the street to a four-lane car thoroughfare, increase driving speeds, and âprotectâ us, cyclists, from all of this withâŠsharrows. Seriously, f*ck sharrows.
The only no vote? Commissioner Arriola. Thank you, Commissioner, for voting for the vision of what Miami Beach could become.
The decision came after a recommendation from City Manager Hudak and the transportation department (seriously, JosĂ©?), proving that despite whatever âprioritiesâ our administration continues to shove down our throats (Climate! Sustainability! Equity! Safer streets! Resilience!), their one and only priority, when it comes to transportation, continues to be to move as many cars as possible, as fast as possible.
So it comes to be that in the same meeting where our city passed an ordinance to phase out gasoline-powered leaf blowers because of #Climate #Sustainability #WeAreSoProgressiveLookAtUsPretendToCareByBanningPlasticStraws, our Mayor and all of our Commissioners except for Commissioner Arriola voted to bring cars back to Washington Ave.
Welcome to #CarFullMiamiBeach! Proudly sponsored by your out-of-touch city leadership!
Here is our GIF recap of what the members of the administration had to say (and didnât say) about Washington Ave:
COMMISSIONER FERNANDEZ
In addition to the concerns about emergency vehicles, the reality is that the amount of bicyclists that use that road is extremely minimal compared to the amount of vehicles that need that road, and the amount of backup and traffic that we experience on that road.
From how I see it, we need to fix this now because itâs affecting a lot of people, we have alternative bicycle facilities just a block over with the slow streets program that a lot of us like to tout as a success. I know that the administration was looking at the implementation of additional bicycle facilities on Pennsylvania Avenue which is a much less traveled road, and so I think that while we look at the long-term solutions for Washington Ave, our community that is stuck in traffic and the clog of vehicles on Washington Ave just deserve to have an immediate fix to this situation, thatâs why Iâve brought this item before us.
Note how, according to Commissioner Fernandez, drivers in cars need this road, the changes are affecting them, and they deserve things like immediate fixes.
Us? People who donât own a car and use our bikes and public transit as our main mode of transportation with little to no infrastructure to accommodate us? We do not need streets and roads, we donât deserve immediate fixes to our problems. We can make do with the now-defunct Slow Streets Program â did the city administration forget to send you the memo of the programâs latest undoing, Commissioner? â and non-existing bike lanes that are being "looked into."
COMMISSIONER RICHARDSON
So, Iâm very supportive of this. I have for months felt concerned about the traffic backup on Washington. It worked for a few months during the pandemic because there was just no traffic but then once traffic picked up again, if someoneâs trying to parallel park, everything just is at a dead stop.
COMMISSIONER ARRIOLA
Iâm going to be a no just for the simple fact that I donât want us to get into this default habit of âsince we canât figure it out we just quit and go back to what was once before,â because the state of policy of this commission, as well as the prior commission, is to prioritize people over cars and to try to have loads of different forms of transit in our city.
This is not the best design, that I agree with, but rather than try to make it better we are just going to quit and restore what it was before, which wasnât great because people just drive up and down Washington Ave.
So, Iâm a no on this because I think the way we should be approaching this is to try and take what weâve already done and figure out a way to make it better, rather than just abandon what we set out to do.
What is Commissioner Arriola referring to? Washington Avenue is part of an adopted Master Plan to be a transit-focused street. The City has designs for a bus/bike lane hybrid that would have addressed many of the current concerns. Why did the city choose to go backward when they could have evolved the pilot into something great?
COMMISSIONERS SAMUELIAN, ROSEN GONZALEZ & MEINER
Commissioners Samuelian, Rosen Gonzalez, and Meiner had ZERO WORDS on the topic, but their silence (and vote) spoke volumes.
Let us not forget that just two months ago, while campaigning, Commissioners Samuelian and Rosen Gonzalez sent in the following answers to the question: Do you support or oppose Washington Avenue functioning primarily as a transit, biking, walking, and commerce corridor that prioritizes modes of transportation other than cars? Please explain your position.
Samuelian: I would like to see Washington Avenue as a multimodal corridor where many forms of transportation can successfully coexist.
KRG: I would like to see Washington Avenue have two lanes plus a protected bike lane. I believe this is possible and that the City already has this plan. We need to get it done.Â
Lovely words. Too bad they canât back them up with votes.