Archive for the 'Little Havana' Category

Commuter Profile: Ellen Haas

Published
by
Mike Lydon
on July 21, 2008
in Bicycles, Downtown, Little Havana, Miami and bike lanes
. 10 Comments

Miami, meet Ellen Haas, a 45-year old commuter bicyclist who lives on 8th Street and 62nd Avenue. Citing fitness, economic, environmental and personal reasons, Ellen recently started bicycling 6.5 miles to work downtown. Transit Miami has asked her a few questions about her commute.

Transit Miami: What was the impetus to start commuting by bicycle?

Ellen Haas: I promised myself that when gas reached $4 a gallon for the lowest octane, I would search for an alternate form of commuting. I decided on bicycling after doing some Internet research on public transit, carpooling and bicycling. Bicycling won out because I keep my independence.

TM: How was the first experience?

EH: The first experience was exhilarating. I rode like a bat out of hell, terrified, almost full speed the whole way thinking that I was going to be maimed or killed by a big dump truck or Metrobus, leaving my daughter with no mother. I was amazed when I arrived downtown intact. Riding home that first day was much more difficult, more traffic, intense sun, exhaust fumes, thunderstorms. Every day when I get home, I feel like I have summited Mt. Everest.

TM: Where do you ride and what is your route of choice?

EH: I head east on Eighth Street [Calle Ocho] at 62nd Avenue. I merge left onto Beacom Blvd. in Little Havana at 22nd Avenue. Then I merge onto Southwest First Street and head all the way downtown. I think it’s about 6.5 miles one way. My route of choice would be Coral Way east/west if it had designated bike lanes. It is a lovely shady street and not as manic as Eighth Street SW or Flagler.

TM: What are the challenges to bicycle commuting?

EH: The biggest challenge by far is car drivers ignorance of laws regarding bicycles and their aggression accordingly on the streets of South Florida. Another thing I didn’t realize is how bumpy poorly maintained roads are on a bike with no shock absorbers. The poorer the neighborhood, the less maintained the streets.

TM: What are the joys?

EH: There are many more joys than challenges. I am saving a lot of money on gas and will save more when I give up my parking space that I will surrender to a poor, deserving, still driving co-worker August 1st. I will also notify my auto insurance carrier that I drive a fraction of what I used to. I am also getting into good shape cardiovascularly.

TM: What type of bicycle do you ride?

EH: I ride a Trek 21 speed track bike. I’m not at all technical, so I don’t know the model or whatever.

TM: Do you have showers at work?

EH: There are showers at work but I would be able to deal with a sink and a washcloth if I had to.

TM: How about safe and reliable bicycle parking?

EH: No. I park over at the public library. I have approached the building management people but they look at me as if I have two heads and cite “security” concerns.” Soon I will ask a superior in the building with more “pull” than me to contact building management.

TM: What advice do you have for people who may be considering commuting by bicycle, but have not yet made the leap?

EH: Like Nike says, “Just Do It”. I am an overweight asthmatic 45 year old single parent. If I can ride 6-7 miles to work, ANYONE can. If you live further than that, consider biking part of the way and using MetroRail or Metro Bus for part of your commute. Everybody I talk to who is still driving has an excuse as to why they can’t.

TM: You have a daughter. What type of values do you think you are instilling in her by bicycling to work?

EH: I hope to instill in her a sense of strong individualism. When the new school year begins next month, I would like for us to bike commute together and I am quite sure no other student in her school rides a bicycle to school. We are becoming active in city, county, state and federal politics; carefully noting candidates’ stands on bike lanes and alternative forms of energy. She also has asthma so I want us both commited to improved health.

TM: What does Miami need to do to become more bicycle friendly?

EH: I could go on for paragraphs about how Miami-Dade County needs designated bike lanes with accompanying signage. Drivers need to be educated via “public service announcements” on television and radio to be broadcast in English/Spanish/Kreole about bicycle [e.g. the "Steer Clear" law] safety. I’ve noticed abandoned train tracks, perfect areas for bike paths. We each need to contact our elected officials and start making ourselves known, on the streets and off.

Unity is definitely unique…

Published
by
Sean Bossinger
on February 29, 2008
in 27th avenue, Brownsville, Little Havana, Livable Neighborhoods, Metrorail and Unity Boulevard
. 5 Comments
Robert Samuels, along with other staff writers of the Miami Herald has been writing this week about Unity Boulevard, perhaps better known as 27th Avenue. This thoroughfare traverses four of the most culturally and economically diverse areas of South Florida.
While the article delves into detail on the neighborhoods of Miami Gardens, Opa-Locka, Liberty City, Little Havana, and Coconut Grove, Samuels and his team wrote a particularly poignant description of the one-two punch that killed a once-vibrant, if still economically-challenged, 35-block stretch of the boulevard:
“Liberty City’s not like it was,” said Edwina Howard, 68, who was waiting for a bus near 79th Street. To her left was the Northside Shopping Centre, the neighborhood’s decrepit crown jewel of retail, now undergoing a $14 million renovation. In front of her was a burned-out hair supply store.

“Things were much better,” Howard said. “There were much better shops and they kept the place clean. I’d go to Sears or J.C. Penney at that mall. Now, I have to go to Dadeland Mall or one in Pembroke Pines.”

The area never recovered from 1980. Blacks erupted in riots that year, after an all-white jury acquitted white police officers charged with beating to death a black man named Arthur McDuffie.

Past Northside, more empty lots appear. One small matchbox house advertises collard greens. Another offers barbecue ribs. Both are locked up.

If you ask why the businesses disappeared, some say that all you have to do is look up.

You’ll see the Metrorail.

The neighborhoods beneath it — from Northwest 76th Street, the northern end of Liberty City, to 41st Street, in Brownsville — are the poorest on Unity Boulevard.

“The Metrorail decimated this neighborhood,” community activist Kenneth Kilpatrick said. “This place used to have a lot of business, a lot of good things. And then Metrorail came, and they all left.”

But why would something that was billed as the be-all end-all transit system destroy a neighborhood, rather than provide the enhancement intended? Samuels writes simply that according to Kilpatrick, the stores along this portion of the Avenue couldn’t stand the dearth of customers due to the length of construction of Metrorail through this corridor.

Having ridden the train through this area countless times, I’ve often wondered the same thing. On occasion, I’ve wanted to exit at Brownsville, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., or Northside stations, and walk along the 27th Avenue corridor myself, to see if I could figure out what I might be able to do to help bring this community alive. But as sure as the train kept moving down the line, my thoughts soon turned to other items - typically my upcoming transfer to Tri-Rail.

Nonetheless, Samuels’s article, especially the part on Liberty City in which he interviews James Brimberry on becoming owner of the last remaining Royal Castle, has reignited that flame. It makes me want to drop everything and go there for one of their burgers. Perhaps that can refuel me and my once-perpetual thoughts of helping redevelop the neighborhoods the train was supposed to bring people to. This desolate space, once teeming with individually-owned and operated businesses, has so much potential to become one of the most livable neighborhoods in the county.

Robert Samuels’s six-day series, which began running Monday, concludes tomorrow with a write-up of 27th Avenue’s southern terminus, in Coconut Grove.

… Sean Bossinger is a new writer for Transit Miami. He manages the UTS Call Center at Florida International University, where he is a Ph. D. student in the Public Management program. In his copious spare time, he enjoys playing with his sons, Donovan and Logan, and spending time with his wife, Tracy. Living in Coral Gables, he frequently finds himself reading a book on the 24 Bus on Coral Way.

Marlins at OB, Another Bad Idea

Published
by
Gabriel Lopez-Bernal
on August 27, 2007
in Downtown, Larry Lebowitz, Little Havana, Marlins, Miami, Orange Bowl, Pedestrian, Public Transit, Stadium, Streetcar, Streetwise, Tri-Rail, UM and Urban Planning
. 8 Comments
There is a great read today up on the MiamiHerald by Larry Lebowitz titled: Why OB is a Lousy Site for Marlins. Take a second a check it out, he voices many of the same positions we’ve been pushing here on Transit Miami… An excerpt:

Tri-Rail isn’t much of an option. It’s a pain to get from the Miami Airport Station to the Orange Bowl today. Even if Miami-Dade Transit created a straight-shot, game-day shuttle from the Tri-Rail station to the OB, how many baseball fans to the north would use it?

Metrorail will only appeal to hard-core urban dwellers. It’s a little over a mile — too far to walk for most pampered, crime-fearing locals — from the closest Metrorail stations on the north side of the river to the Orange Bowl.

Barring some unlikely seismic political changes at County Hall, no one will be trying to shift billions of transit dollars to expand Metrorail near the OB in the near future.

What about a streetcar that could shuttle fans from downtown transit hubs?

Right now, Miami Mayor Manny Diaz can’t muster a three-vote majority of commissioners to support a streetcar in downtown, Wynwood, the Design District and Allapattah — all on the opposite side of the river from the stadium.

A ballpark in downtown would be closer to I-95, Metrorail, Metromover, and a proposed light-rail system on the Florida East Coast corridor that one day could shuttle fans from Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties.

The economics and politics might be tougher, but an accessible, pedestrian-friendly downtown stadium makes the most sense.

-Larry Lebowitz

Loss of the Hurricanes - Not Just Disengaging a City, but a Community

Published
by
Ryan Sharp
on August 22, 2007
in Dolphins Stadium, Hurricanes, Little Havana, Miami and University of Miami
. 2 Comments
While Gabe did a great job lamenting the loss of the Hurricanes from Miami, I felt compelled to add a few things, being dually a Canes fan and a fan of the City.

Let me start by saying, while I suppose it’s justifiable from the perspective of Shalala and the University, as they will be making more money, playing in a nicer, more modern stadium, and perhaps even helping recruiting, the impact of leaving the OB is tough to quantify in numbers.

For one, Gabe mentioned how the OB is special, almost because of its grit. It was miserable for players and fans because it was old, hostile, and fundamentally “Miami”.

Also, for so long football Saturday (and don’t forget Sunday) was known for the marriage between this part of Little Havana and the OB. The tradition we all speak of is certainly not confined to the smoke-filled tunnel entrance or the wide-right mystique. It’s also just as much the tastes, sounds and smells of the neighborhood that made it special.

Unlike going to some far-flung suburban stadium in “could-be-anywhere-ville”, when fans and opposing teams came to the Orange Bowl they were entering the heart and soul of inner-city Miami. There was no mistaking where you were - Latin styled sidewalk BBQ, Spanish signage and street names, block after block of pre-game parties - you were in Miami. It was this authentic local neighborhood character that inspired so much tradition, which will now be lost.

Now, the Canes are being outsourced to the banal suburbs, where everything that made playing at the OB so unique, so quintessentially Miami, will now be relegated to traffic jams, $20 parking fees, and sipping beers in a giant sea of asphalt. If it wasn’t for signs, you could cut and paste the Dolphins Stadium area and be just about anywhere where there’s expressways, uber parking lots, and cookie-cutter stadiums.

Alas, talk about an identity crisis. The University of Miami Hurricanes, based in Coral Gables, whom play football in Miami Gardens. Is this not emblematic of Miami’s hyper-fragmentation?

Can we call them the Miami-Dade Hurricanes, now?

The Case for Bicycle Boulevards

Published
by
Ryan Sharp
on May 25, 2007
in Bicycle Boulevard, Bikes, Coconut Grove, Little Havana, Miami, Miami-Dade County, Morningside, Portland, Streetfilms and bike lanes
. 2 Comments

Today I was going to speak about Bicycle Boulevards - specifically how they can benefit Miami (or any city) and how they might be implemented. However, the guys from StreetFilms have already made a great video explaining the Bicycle Boulevard and its benefits.

As for Miami, I think Bicycle Boulevards are a very necessary component of the larger pedestrian/bicycle-oriented system that would make our city(ies) more livable.

Right off the top of my head, three good potential Bicycle Boulevards in Miami could be:

-SW 6th St between SW 4th Ave & SW 27th Ave
-Tigertail Ave between Sw17 Ave & Mary St
-N Federal Hwy/NE 4th Ct between NE 36th St and NE 79th St

SW 6th Street is the classic example of wasted street potential at the expense of maximizing automobile traffic flow. Despite on-street parking on both sides, this street is too wide for a one-way. Combined with traffic synchronization that allows the driver to speed through almost 20 blocks without a red light, traffic calming is definitely in order. However, SW 6th happens to run right through the heart of Little Havana, one of the densest neighborhoods in all of the SE United States and perhaps Miami’s most organic neighborhood. Due in large part to the density of this corridor, it has a fairly high number of pedestrians and cyclists in proportion to most other residential areas of the Greater Miami area. With the necessary traffic calming and addition of bicycle-oriented measures/infrastructure, I think this street has great potential for a Bicycle Boulevard.

Tigertail Avenue, officially holding “Scenic Transportation Corridor” status with the City of Miami, also has great potential as a Bicycle Boulevard. One thing is for sure: it is a lot more scenic by bike or by foot than it is by automobile. Unfortunately, Tigertail currently has no bike infrastructure of any kind, and several portions of the Avenue are even without sidewalks. Moreover, during rush hours Tigertail is turned into a bypass for thru-traffic avoiding US-1 or Bayshore Drive. It wouldn’t take much to make this into a Bicycle Boulevard, though. I don’t have official statistics, but from personal experience I would estimate that Coconut Grove has the greatest number of cyclists per capita in all of Greater Miami. I’m sure residents living along the Tigertail corridor would love to have fewer cars rumbling by their homes and making this historic street hostile to cyclists and pedestrians.

I think N. Federal Highway/NE 4th Ct has good potential as a Bicycle Boulevard for several reasons. First, it runs between NE 2nd Avenue and Biscayne Boulevard, and should not be reserved as another N/S arterial. Secondly, it would integrate very well with the Streetcar, allowing people to efficiently get from downtown to almost the City Line without ever driving. Hopefully, planners would incorporate bicycle infrastructure into proposed make-over projects for 79th Street - even having the vision to connect it over the causeway to North Beach. Also, the NE 4th Ct section is already in pretty good shape physically, having narrower streets, slower speed limits, and shade trees. However, the N. Federal Highway segment from NE 36th Street to NE 55th Street definitely needs a makeover. Designating it a Bicycle Boulevard affords the perfect opportunity for planners to remodel this currently insipid, hostile road into a high quality urban street that is the backbone for several emerging neighborhoods.

In closing, I must note that a very necessary component of these Bicycle Boulevards would be their integration with a larger system of Bicycle infrastructure. We don’t want to have these Boulevards originating and/or terminating in hostile places for cyclists. This is why it is critical for planners to develop a comprehensive Bicycle Master Plan for the City and County that recognizes cycling as a legitimate transportation alternative, not just a recreational pursuit.