Please join the Brickell Homeowners Association as they host FDOT District 6 on Wednesday September 15 @ 7:00pm at the Metropolitan Condominium located at 2475 Brickell Avenue. It would be a good idea to encourage as many people as possible to attend this meeting. If you live, work, play or visit the Brickell area this meeting is a must.
FDOT will begin a major resurfacing project in a few months on Brickell Avenue. Unfortunately, FDOT does not believe that lowering the speed limit or changing the design speed of Brickell Avenue to discourage speeding is a good idea. They also don’t believe that adding crosswalks or cultivating a more pedestrian-friendly environment would be better for one of the most densely populated areas in all of Florida. Quite the contrary, they believe that all is fine and dandy on Brickell Avenue and that speeding is not a problem. They do not share our belief that our roads are for people, bicycles and cars and they are meant to be shared safely.
Transit Miami sources have informed us that FDOT would not consider changing the speed limit if they found that 85 percent of all cars are currently traveling at or below the already much too high 35/40mph speed limit. The dynamic of Brickell has changed substantially over the last 5 years and therefore FDOT should consider this as well. You can find a list of some of our recommendations for improvements here. You can also find a list of some very excellent suggestions from new Transit Miami contributor Adam Mizrahi at What Miami. (Please welcome Adam!)
If you can’t make it, please send an email to Gus Pego, District 6 Secretary and let him know we deserve a better Brickell Avenue.
Just an FYI: The following organizations all support a lower speed limit and a more pedestrian-friendly environment on Brickell Avenue:
Brickell Avenue Homeowners Association
Miami Bicycle Action Committee
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Changing the speed limit alone will have little to no effect on the speed people will drive. The problem again is the long stretch of road with no signals or cross streets - no reason to slow down regardless of the posted limit. A 25 or 30 mph limit would be appropriate for a street with lots of intersections, on-street parking and no median. Besides that, this is a resurfacing project FDOT does not have anything budgeted to actually modify the geometry of the road.
Again Anon, you will not find any disagreement from me. Although the speed limit needs to be reduced, reducing the speed limit alone will do very little to discourage speeding. However, narrowing travel lanes, adding bike lanes/sharrows and additional crosswalks are cheap solutions that calm traffic. Let me remind you that FDOT has not considered any of these inexpensive traffic calming measures. This project will take two years to complete, while they are out there working hard, they should also consider placing elevated crosswalks to calm traffic too. There are a number of things FDOT should be doing at this opportune time which that have not even considered.
This is not our parent’s Brickell Avenue anymore. A roadway design that worked 20 years ago, does not work today. The infrastructure on Brickell Avenue has not kept pace with the tremendous residential and commercial growth we have experienced in the last 10 years. This is a perfect opportunity for FDOT to show the entire state of Florida that they are serious about designing roadways for people and not just the automobile. The point here is not to move cars faster.