Moving Together, Faster
Sorry about the lack of activity lately, I’ve been mulling over my Graduate school decisions while working to finish up at UF (more on both of these very soon…)
This week we’ll be sure to address:
We can point to our own indicators of a boom. The Florida House of Representatives’ budget includes $700,000 for a feasibility study for a freight rail corridor from South Bay to West Miami, which the Miami Herald referred to as the “Sugar Train“; the House also gave their support for a commuter rail system in Orlando. This is at a time when the state is cutting the budget everywhere else. The number of Transit-Oriented Developments (TODs) being proposed around Tri-Rail stations seems to be increasing weekly. Sheridan Stationside Village, Deerfield Beach, Boca Raton, and Delray Beach TODs are all pushing forward at a time when the housing market is dismal and even general development is being pulled down with it. Fort Lauderdale is funding their new streetcar system despite the property tax amendment cutting their revenues.
Overall, rail is looking up while the economy looks down. The argument that you cannot get Americans out of their cars is no longer valid. Now is the time to get people out of their cars and onto the rails. Wake up or miss the train.
Miami 21: Our sources over in city hall have informed us that Miami 21 is literally on life support. The city commissioners are completely oblivious to the true benefits this new zoning policy will bring to the city, helping to create a sustainable, walkable, and accessible community. Miami 21 will create a cohesive and well organized map for future growth in the city, bringing density to the corridors and areas which would benefit from it most while preserving the qualities of every neighborhood.
We urge all of our readers to email/call the city commissioners to voice your support for Miami 21.
Commissioner Angel Gonzalez: agonzalez@ci.miami.fl.us (305) 250-5430
Commissioner Marc Sarnoff: msarnoff@miamigov.com (305) 250-5333
Commissioner Joe Sanchez: jsanchez@ci.miami.fl.us (305) 250-5380
Commissioner Thomas Regalado: tregalado@ci.miami.fl.us (305) 250-5420
Commissioner Michelle Spence-Jones: MSpence@ci.miami.fl.us (305) 250-5390
Tri-Rail: In the wake of rising oil prices, our logical friends over in the FDOT are looking to strip Tri-Rail funding for a handful of road expansion projects in the tri-county area. Tri-Rail has launched the save my train initiative to prevent the budget cutbacks which would essentially cripple the agency. We should add that last year Tri-Rail was the second fastest growing transit agency in the country and the fastest growing agency in 2006.
If you have any further questions feel free to contact us (movemiami@gmail.com)
There will be a “cyclist town hall meeting” next Monday at Coral Gables War Memorial Youth Center. The details are below:
–> When: April 14, 2008.
–> Where: Coral Gables War Memorial Youth Center
405 University Drive
Coral Gables, FL 33134
–> Time: 7:00PM
–> Host: Miami-Dade County Commissioner Carlos Giminez and City of Coral Gables Commissioner Ralph Cabrera
I’m headed up to Boston today to check out some graduate Planning Programs in the area. Ryan, Sean, and JM will be taking good care of everyone until I return on Thursday…
Walking around in the Stade Olympique neighborhood of Montreal’s outskirts, I saw the perfect opportunity to illustrate how seamlessly medium density buildings can be integrated with classic single family homes (sans the hideous car ports). This picture above shows a row of multi-family buildings abutting one story and short two-story houses that are not unlike the ubiquitous kind of single family housing found throughout Miami-Dade and Broward Counties.
This is the kind of infill that Miami 21 would make possible, in turn creating denser communities in an unobtrusive manner. This also makes it easier to build affordable housing that makes for diverse socioeconomic communities.
We are not anti-car zealots, we strongly believe that the key to creating a sustainable community is a multi-modal transportation policy rather than the uni-modalism that currently overwhelms Miami-Dade. It appears that in the eyes of some, Transit Miami has lost its focus, becoming too obsessed with creating a city that is designed and navigable to humans, rather than the voluminous heaps of metal we all wander around in.
A Message from the Publisher
I started Transit Miami for one reason: because I care about my community. The way I see it,
While we appreciate Critical Miami’s kudos and acknowledge their own fine work over the last few years, we definitely feel that it is their site that is out of touch with reality in this case. Perhaps Critical Miami is baffled because they are not likely educated on best practices in contemporary urban planning. Frankly, we find it contradictory that a site that calls for “holding the line” so adamantly would be so misunderstanding when it comes to better land-use policy.
To be clear, Transit Miami never stated that worsening driving conditions was the best way to improve transit. In fact, we stated the opposite, “Additional parking will increase congestion…” The developer, not Transit Miami, originally proposed the position of hampering a vehicle’s ability to access the EWT development. We supported his decision and original plans to reduce parking capacity at EWT due to the direct links his structure would have with the adjacent Metromover structure (just as we supported reductions in parking at the Coconut Grove Metrorail Transit-Oriented Development) and never once suggested making driving more difficult, only parking.
Critical
The interesting part is, we aren’t even advocating for anything drastic. For example, we promote the Miami Streetcar project, which calls for constructing a streetcar line through one of the densest and fastest-growing urban corridors in the state. This is not very drastic at all, especially in a city with a woefully underdeveloped mass transit system and sizable low-income population. We promote decreases in minimum parking standards. This is not so radical either since it reduces the overall development cost, making housing more affordable. There is a sizable body of scholarly literature available that correlates the underlying message of our letter: increasing parking capacity increases driving demand like dangling a carrot for cars.
Sustainability,
This means two things: in order to be more sustainable from a transportation perspective we must improve and expand our transit capacity and we must improve our accessibility. The transit component is straight forward enough. However, continuing the auto-centric status quo gives the illusion that we do not have to change our transportation habits and there will always be some fix or policy to make things better for driving. This could not be further from the truth and is flat out irresponsible. This is why we are against excessive minimum parking requirements, because it is like mandating more beer for an alcoholic.
Regarding the second component, accessibility, this means changing our zoning to allow mixed land uses and creating higher densities. This will enable people to travel shorter distances for their employment, retail, commercial, recreational, and residential purposes (if they so chose.)
Note: the goal of changing our land use policy is to enable people to have a choice when it comes to personal mobility, where walking or driving can be considered equal alternatives. This is a fundamental component of transportation equity.
This increases the viability of walking and cycling, which incidentally is the cheapest way to get around. However, if you continue down the auto-centric policy paradigm, you are not facilitating the type of conditions that make walking, cycling, transit, and higher density a formidable option.
Transit
Regarding the division between the City of
Ryan never said or even implied that Miami was going to have a transit system like Montreal’s – he simply implied that Montreal had a quality transit system and that Miami should strive to improve theirs in order to achieve a higher transit standard and all the external benefits that go along with it. That is tough to misconstrue. In addition, he never mentioned or even remotely implied that
Transit
Bicycle as a means of Transportation, not just a Vacation
We don’t recall any sort of official “challenge,” however Critical Miami is unequivocally wrong about their assertion that such a program cannot work anywhere in Miami. Just because Critical Miami is a bike enthusiast doesn’t mean you understand how bicycling systems operate or can function in an urban setting.
Regarding Critical Miami’s comments about it taking generations to enact the type of changes we advocate, this has been proven otherwise. Enrique Penalosa, the former Mayor of Bogota, Colombia, created a thriving bicycle network in his city and within just five years captured 5% of the daily transportation needs. It just so happens that Mr. Penalosa was recently in
The fact of the matter is that changes occur when the funding (and mentality) is there in support. Sure, cities evolve and mature and most changes do not occur overnight, but the mentality Critical Miami presents falls in line with the mentality that has accomplished nothing in
-This article represents the views of the entire Transit Miami Staff…
Believe it or not, transit is a reality in the greater Miami area. The Fort Lauderdale city commission just voted to pay for 25% of the downtown streetcar project known as the Wave. That means they will provide $37.5 million of the estimated $150 million needed for the project. The next step for the Downtown Development Authority is to secure $75 million in federal and $37.5 million in state funding. It seems like a challenge, but the important thing is that this was a unanimous vote of support for the project to proceed.Contrary to what bloggers like Len Degroot or Alesh Houdek might be inclined to believe, Fort Lauderdale is neither dreaming nor out of touch with reality. With gas prices skyrocketing, people want alternatives to cars. Transit has never looked better.
Montreal…what a great city.
With that said, I’d like to walk you through (pun intended) some of my observations and experiences that both illuminate Montreal’s successes and Miami’s potential.
Transit System
Montreal’s subway system was very clean, efficient, and took us most places we wanted to go. I took a couple trips on the “Green line” that runs between Angrignon and Honore-Beaugrand. Levels of service were high based on my experience, whereas I never waited more than five minutes for a train even on Saturday and Sunday. At $2.75 per one-way trip, the fares were a little steep, though I’m assuming that would be mitigated if I had bought a 3-day unlimited or monthly unlimited ride pass.
Though it’s not transit per se, I was thrilled to see separated bike lanes at least a few major boulevards. Not only are they protected from traffic, they’re bidirectional unlike most Class II striped bike lanes and even some Class I separated lanes, like on 9th Ave in Manhattan.
Parks and Public Spaces
Ah, my favorite part. I’m a firm believer that it’s the quality of a city’s public spaces that make it a truly great place to live, which is why Montreal scores so high on my livability scale. The city is loaded with really nice parks and plazas that serve as social and civic gathering magnets. As far as plazas go, Place Jacques Cartier and Place d’Armes were my favorites, though several others could easily make the cut.
However, my runaway favorite public space in Montreal is the city’s namesake park, Mont Royal. When I first heard about Montreal’s “mountain”, I have to admit I was pretty skeptical. I figured it was a series of rolling hills at best, with just enough of an incline to force cyclists into a medium-to-low gear.
Was I ever mistaken.
Looking from downtown, which the park roughly abuts, it actually appears that the city abruptly stops up against a mountain on one side. To add to the effect, several bouts of snowfall from a long Canadian winter remained draped across Mont Royal’s landscape not unlike that of a small snowcapped mountain in Vermont or Upstate New York.
After scaling steep blocks just to reach the foot of the park, you’re faced with the task of climbing an even steeper mini-mountain — with a foot of snow on the ground.
The park is beautiful. It was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, who also designed Central Park in Manhattan and Prospect Park in Brooklyn. If you want to climb it, you can either follow winding paths at a moderate grade, or you can take the shortcut and go straight up. About halfway up the views of the downtown skyline are already spectacular, but at the top you have incredible panoramic vistas of most of the city and the St. Lawrence River.
It didn’t matter that it was 32 degrees out with a foot of snow on the ground the weekend before April — the park was packed with joggers, walkers, sightseers, and even cross country skiers.
Sadly, Miami doesn’t really have a grand park that is centrally located and easily accessible to bicyclists and pedestrians. I consider Crandon Park to be pretty great, but it’s an isolated island and not a centrally located grand urban park. The beaches of South Beach and North Beach are adjacent to high density areas and are high quality public spaces, but they are in a different category and serve different purposes than a centrally located urban park. Museum Park has the potential to be great, but it’s limited size and extreme easterly location may keep it from fulfilling that role.
Urban Design
Montreal’s urban design was of high quality. The density of most neighborhoods is relatively high thanks to rowhouses and apartment buildings that helped define street space. Downtown was full of high-rises, but most of them were designed well to fit with human scale and the pedestrian realm. The architecture of both old and modern buildings was of high quality. Moreover, most streets were well in tact and had not given way to curb cut mutilation and excessive off-street parking.
Depending on where you are, certain neighborhoods have a “Brooklyn” feel to them, while others have more of a “Philly” feel.
Even the newly developed neighborhoods on the fringe of the city consisted of modern-looking rowhouses and apartment buildings, which was very encouraging to see. Overall, the streets were very clean and comfortable as well. Interestingly, the streets were pretty quiet with automobile traffic, drivers drove safely and courteously, and very little congestion was present.
What’s the lesson for Miami? Montreal serves as just one more example of a major city full of neighborhoods with medium-to-high density that is extraordinarily livable. Because buildings are built right up to the sidewalk and are often attached, they do a great job defining street space and making the pedestrian experience a pleasant one. You can walk all day in Montreal, in inclement weather no less, and not get tired or anxious because space is well defined and you always feel like you’re somewhere. Without these characteristics in most of Greater Miami, it often feels like even short walks take forever and go from nowhere to nowhere. Miami 21 will probably be our best opportunity this century to improve this condition.
Stay tuned for additional lessons from Montreal.
The current American auto insurance policy is based on various factors: past driving history, type of automobile, even credit ratings. Few policies are evaluated based on how far one drives in a particular year. Whether you drive 1,000 miles, 10,000 miles, or 50,000 miles, typically you will pay the same rate for your auto insurance policy. While the companies do keep general tabs on how much one drives, this is mostly for determining the value of the vehicle vis-a-vis the comprehensive and collision coverage carried.
Evolving theory in the insurance industry appears headed in a direction that may alter the way policies are built to include some component for distance traveled in a year. The thought is that this could provide some market-based incentive for people to get out of their cars and onto public transit.
As if $4-a-gallon gas isn’t enough to do that already!
At the time, transit officials insisted they had plans underway to create various rider passes in addition to the existing $75 monthly pass. There was talk of something akin to
Granted, transit does offer discounted tokens and various price breaks on monthly passes for groups, seniors and college students. But still no easy-to-use, per-ride cards.
When is MDT going to wake up?
Recent Comments