Planning? Who needs that?

I’ve seen some unsettling things lately about the current and upcoming developments in the city of Miami. I was first set off by an article which appeared in the Herald back in February; it was titled: “Stage is set for theater with no parking.” I thought to myself, wasn’t the whole point of building this thing downtown to create an urban center which is easily accessible by ulterior forms of transportation in what will soon become our most densely populated area? Now, everyone is suddenly whining about a lack of parking, the type of parking you would find if it was built out in suburbia “Centrally Located” as they like to call it nowadays. The new performing arts center is rising within a short walking distance of the current metromover and the upcoming Miami Streetcar, plenty of reason, in my opinion to cut back on those 1,500 parking spaces the venue is seeking to find. Here is a notable quote from that same article; I think it personifies the Miami ideology very well:

”Who’s going to walk for blocks in the rain and the heat and the dark and the mosquitoes, especially in that neighborhood?”
–Taffy Gould

Well, if it hot, it’s not dark, so there goes your first worry. That neighborhood is the Wynwood/PAC district and it probably has more pigeons and seagulls than mosquitoes, those are found out in suburbia, where you likely live.

These thoughts of the PAC parking situation were spurred as I recently scanned through the development page of the upcoming City Square project, across the street from the PAC. I came across another upsetting passage, it reads:

“Located next to Interstate 95 and 395 off ramps, over 150,000 vehicles will pass city square every day. Shoppers can access City Square from the Venetian Causeway or Biscayne Boulevard (US1), located one block east of this impressive site.”

Yeah, that’s right, absolutely no mention whatsoever of the free metromover train that will be stopping right outside its door with plenty of customers, residents, and tourists (correction: it’s mentioned on a later page, but, it still seems like an afterthought as the above quote appears on several pages.) Even scarier, perhaps, the development will contain 3,401 parking spaces (750 of which will belong to the PAC), effectively using up a space nearly equal to the retail space just for parking (now that’s what I call efficient.)

I also came across this article, which proudly announces the upcoming construction of a 400 space parking garage in the design district. Isn’t this the very same area that will be serviced by a streetcar around the same time the garage opens?

The point I’m trying to make is that with all of these new developments we are going to get massive hideous parking structures, filled with cars which will further clog our streets. The city and the county haven’t placed adequate pressure on developers and citizens to use and emphasize the existing and upcoming transit services in these areas. Why can’t we learn from our mistakes and those of other cities and plan actually ahead, intelligently? Miami 21 seeks to correct these flaws, but that plan has yet to be enacted as these developments continue to rise atop of massive parking structures. When the PAC opens, I’ll be riding past the traffic on US-1 on metrorail and then walk the rest of the way past the idle cars waiting to pay big bucks for parking…

Transit Miami