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The above photograph came from the airplane mounted camera of local photographer James Good. Although certainly not one of his most creative pictures, this picture gives us an excellent aerial view of the realignment of Biscayne Boulevard along Bicentennial (Museum) Park. The beautiful design in the median with new wider sidewalks on either side, will allow the new residents of the condos emerging behind to easily access the Carnival Center and all destinations along the Boulevard easily by foot. The initial conceptual drawings included images of sidewalk cafes, tree canopies, and streetcars running along the new more pedestrian friendly corridor. Of particular interest is the small building in the bottom center; a water treatment pumping facility which emits a foul odor and isn’t planned to move elsewhere anytime soon…
I don’t know why locals are so excited about development downtown.
We clearly do not have the infrastructure to support these tennants who are, undoubtedly, going to move into those lots with a car to boot (no pun intended).
Secondly, our air quality is already being affected by the smog and dirt from the massive construction frenzy, soon to be replaced by people flushing toilets, driving cars, producing trash and so on.
Finally, I’m always skeptical about projects that target only ONE class of people even though study upon study demonstrate that mixed use/mixed-income and transit oriented development is a win-win situation.
But, the corrupticians who have infiltrated local government are complicit, if not full culpable, in bringing about the banana-republicization of Miami-Dade County. I can’t wait for my internship to be up, and I’m outta here!
Citizen477: Be specific - what infrastructure do you think is missing downtown?
What evidence do you have that the construction is contributing more smog and dirt to the air than, say, the hundreds of thousands of private automobiles that drive here each day?
How does flushing toilets and producing trash affect the environment downtown any differently than if these residents were dispersed over lower densities?
Citizen477 JUST TAKE A HIKE AND BE DONE WITH IT! YOU MAKE LITTLE SENSE.
Narrowing Biscayne while building huge condos alongside it? Where is all the new traffic going to go?
Thousands of citizens are being screwed for the sake of a wider median to please the eyes of the super rich who will be living above it. Way to go, Miami.
Thank you anonymous #1 I was thinking the exact same thing… and anonymous #2 Biscayne isn’t being narrowed, it’s still going to be 6 lanes but with the median and probably the widest sidewalks in Miami.
madeindade,
Biscayne used to be 8 lanes wide in the section in the photo.
They’ve stolen two lanes to make an extra wide MEDIAN. I’m all for sidewalks, but a median???
Stupid, stupid, stupid city planning.
–Anon #2.
Anon #2, are you kidding me? So what would you suggest, eight lanes on Biscayne, Flagler, and Miami Ave? The whole point of the Biscayne makeover is to facilitate a much improved pedestrian environment. This means not having the equivalent of an 8-lane highway cutting through your downtown. It includes wide sidewalks and tree canopy. It includes the increased density, mixed-use, and new residents living downtown and on the boulevard. And yes, it includes the medians. Moreover, multiple modes of transit are accessible, which should be given priortity to the automobile (especially in this part of the city).
Bottom line: wide, eight-lane, tree-less, suburban-style surface highways running through your downtown is anything but good planning practice.
No, I would not suggest “eight lanes on Biscayne, Flagler, and Miami Ave.” Straw man. I am suggesting NOT NARROWING streets that already have severe traffic problems. I’m all for an “improved pedestrian environment,” and while treessidewalks are great ridiculously wide medians (without trees, mind you) aren’t. And until we have better public transit infrastructure, making automobile traffic even worse is not the right solution, especially with the greatly increased density coming from all these condos.
Anon #2
Well, anon, if you knew anything about city planning (and you obviously don’t) you would know that your proposal equates to terrible urban design. One of the first steps toward improving our transit system is to increase ridership on existing modes. That is one ancillary benefit of the “greatly increased density coming from all these condos”. It doesn’t matter how wide Biscayne Boulevard is, all of these new residents have easy access to multiple modes of transit. Of course, you think like a true Miamian though, recognizing transit as an afterthought. I’m sure you don’t even ride transit, so you feel like you’re losing out as a stakeholder if Biscayne Blvd. doesn’t remain as wide.
Even if traffic does get worse, that will create demand for transit. You can’t have a spatially auto-oriented environment and expect transit to work well. That is one of the most popular arguments Miamians make against transit - that “everything is too spread out around here for it work”. But when steps are made to densify parts of the city and implement traffic calming (such as on Biscayne) there’s a backlash from people like you who claim to support transit.
Multiple modes of transit? Ummmm…let’s see, the bus and Metromover? Oh, and Metrorail if the Downtown residents need to go to Dadeland. And where are those buses going to go? Into the same damn traffic jam that everyone else is stuck in.
You seem to be casually forgetting the thousands of commuters that use this road to get into downtown daily. The bus system is way too underdeveloped to handle them.
And traffic calming? BS euphemism used by automobile haters. You can’t calm traffic if it’s already stuck in a jam.
And by “densifying” parts of the city, you’re not going to cure Miami’s urban sprawl. I’d love to have a real downtown that doesn’t shut down at 6PM,but that’s a long way off, and screwing people who do not live downtown is not the answer.
Oh, and I didn’t get personal, while you have. Chill out and lose the ad hominem attacks.
Anon #2
Anon #2,
You seem like the type that attempts to point out fallacies to discredit someone’s argument because your own argument is poor and not based on any evidence or objective criteria.
I did not commit a straw man fallacy because although I attacked your theory on Biscayne, I only posed questions about where you might stand regarding the widening of other streets. Straw man arguments are based on deception, and I certainly attacked the real issue at hand.
My basic points for you to respond to were: 1) your theory represents bad urban design; 2) that you don’t ride transit; 3)transit benefits strongly from a denser environment; 4) more congested traffic will lead to increased transit ridership, which will lead to long-term benefits for the city. Ironically, you chose to use several fallacies and generally poor logic to respond.
Let’s see, how many fallacies did you use in that last bit? One of my points was that Biscayne Blvd. has multiple modes of transit on the boulevard or within a couple blocks. Instead of facing the facts - that metromover, metrorail, and soon the streetcar are/will be present there, you used the prototypical straw man by trying to minimize metrorail’s significance with a ridiculous, completely fallacious statement: “Oh, and metrorail if the downtown residents need to go to Dadeland.” Then you attack the bus system even though that was not a mode of transit I had mentioned. Nice red herring argument.
I also love the comment about traffic calming. “And traffic calming? BS euphemism used by automobile haters”. LOL - A euphemism for what? Explain yourself. Are you impying that people who like high-quality, safe pedestrian environments are automobile haters? If so, that would be a fallacy.
I really liked this one - “you can’t calm traffic if it’s already stuck in a jam”. Brilliant. This would only make sense if Biscayne was perpetually jammed, which even you have to admit is far from true.
“And by ‘densifying’ parts of the city, you’re not going to cure Miami’s urban sprawl”. I would love to hear you explain your reasoning and alternative solution regarding that statement.
“…and screwing people who do not live downtown is not the answer”. How are these people screwed? Making a point like that requires some explanation or else it carries little worth.
I didn’t commit an ad hominem either. I may have attacked you, but it regarded the issue at hand and I certainly refuted your issues.
This will be the last comment I make regarding our conflict. This blog was not meant for this kind of back and forth.
I hate to say it but I tend to agree with most of what anon #2 says… the buses barely work, the Metrorail doesn’t go anywhere and 95 percent of Dade County will not use transit even if someday we get a competently operated system with multiple rail lines. This is a suburban county and unfortunately little is going to change until we get $6 gas prices like in the UK.
MadeinDade,
Since we both know that it’s highly unlikely gas will hit $6/gallon anytime soon, we have to use other methods to jump start the shift to a more sustainable, urban environment and way of life. If we all just threw in the towel and proclaimed Miami a suburban county, we would be backpeddling toward a precarious future that is entirely unsustainable.
I can’t wait to see the effects of the giant hurricane everyone knows is coming rip through downtown. After Wilma and seeing how the hurricane proof glass fared in what was a weak Cat 2, it should be quite a site to see how these sexy new buildings fare in something stronger. You think the storm surge will roll through the lobbies? I wonder if the urban planners have successfully prepared for that?
I like to call a spade a spade and like it or not the suburban, drive-everywhere lifestyle/mentality is ingrained here - yes we have our pockets of urbanity but unfortunately the beach and downtown are insignificant compared to the rest of the county (and don’t forget Broward!) While I wish we could have 200 miles of Metrorail crossing the county that’s not going to happen and wishing for some paradigm shift isn’t going to make it come any sooner.
While you were so busy attacking me and my points, you missed the main point of my argument: that this will result in increased congestion from daily commuter traffic, making the lives of those who commute even more miserable. For the sake of what? A bloody median?
“Instead of facing the facts - that metromover, metrorail, and soon the streetcar are/will be present there, you used the prototypical straw man by trying to minimize metrorail’s significance with a ridiculous, completely fallacious statement: “Oh, and metrorail if the downtown residents need to go to Dadeland.” “
Wow. The metromover, metrorail and streetcar. The metromover is great if you’re downtown and going out to lunch, but is useless for commuters. This will not relieve any traffic problems.
Metrorail. If you live along the US1 corridor or in Hialeah, you’ve got Metrorail. However, the majority of the commuting population does NOT live in those areas, and, as such, despite your “traffic calming” proposal, will not switch over to Metrorail. And regarding my supposedly “fallacious” statement, pray tell, where exactly will the affluent downtown residents go on the Metrorail? Hialeah? I don’t think so. The Grove? Pointless to use Metrorail, as no one would want to make the walk across US1 and along 27th Ave to the center of the Grove. (Even this blog documents how bad access to that station is). So, what do you have left? Dadeland. Oh, OK, Sunset Place. Please, please tell me where else they would go? I’m dying to hear.
“Then you attack the bus system even though that was not a mode of transit I had mentioned. Nice red herring argument. “
Who cares if you mentioned it? It’s certainly one of the “multiple modes of transit” that we have in our great city, and, unfortunately, it’s stuck in the same traffic jams as the rest of the commuters.
” “And traffic calming? BS euphemism used by automobile haters”. LOL - A euphemism for what? Explain yourself.”
Traffic calming is a euphemism for measures taken to slow down traffic that have no other legitimate use; i.e. slowing down traffic for its own sake. Examples would be four way stops where one road is clearly a minor road; extra stop signs where they are not necessary; stop signs instead of yield signs; and so forth. These “traffic calming” measures increase gasoline usage, exhaust, and noise; so they are not only frustrating but bad for the environment as well.
“Are you impying that people who like high-quality, safe pedestrian environments are automobile haters? If so, that would be a fallacy. “
No, that’s your stupid inference.
“I really liked this one - “you can’t calm traffic if it’s already stuck in a jam”. Brilliant. This would only make sense if Biscayne was perpetually jammed, which even you have to admit is far from true. “
It is jammed during commuting hours, and creating bottlenecks will make the problem even worse.
” “And by ‘densifying’ parts of the city, you’re not going to cure Miami’s urban sprawl”. I would love to hear you explain your reasoning and alternative solution regarding that statement. “
Simple. Building huge, luxury condos priced in the millions will not cause the people who live in relatively affordable suburban homes to move downtown. Creating downtown condos will not eliminate Westchester, West Kendall, Miami Lakes or Aventura. And despite these grandiose “densification” plans, subdivision after subdivision is still being built on the edge of the Everglades.
” “…and screwing people who do not live downtown is not the answer”. How are these people screwed? Making a point like that requires some explanation or else it carries little worth. “
By making the already painful commute even worse. If you had actually gotten the main point I tried to make, you’d realize that.
“I didn’t commit an ad hominem either. I may have attacked you…”
And what exactly do you think an ad hominem is?
“This will be the last comment I make regarding our conflict. This blog was not meant for this kind of back and forth.”
Whatever. Why do you have comments enabled, then?
For all your self-proclaimed “expertise” on urban design, you seem to be completely oblivious to actual daily life for the majority of people in Miami.
–Anon #2
Anon,
Here’s some research to marinate on:
http://www.vtpi.org/gentraf.pdf
http://www.lgc.org/freepub/PDF/Land_Use/focus/road_supply_CA_urban_areas.pdf
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=cache:FGLpnfMb3ysJ:www.preservationist.net/transportation/induced_travel/pdf/induced_travel_effects.pdf+
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=cache:sW1PDwnTHtAJ:sensibletransportation.org/pdf/noland.pdf+author:%22Noland%22+intitle:%22Relationships+between+highway+capacity+and+induced+…%22+
All of these studies prove the futility of widening Biscayne Blvd. in the first place. Given that this portion of Biscayne is in close proximity to multiple modes of transit, and given the city’s goal to create a denser, more pedestrian-oriented city where transit is emphasized, the effects of a widened boulevard are incompatible.