Sunset plans disappoint cyclists

Hopeful bicyclists found little to cheer about in the state's latest plans for repaving Sunset Drive just west of South Miami. Cyclists have been asking for bike lanes on this east-west street for years, and despite serial disappointments from the City of South Miami we nurtured hope that state road engineers might be opening to the concept. If they are, you couldn't tell it last night from the plans laid out at St. Matthew Church (photo by Tony Blazejack) for public questions and comment.

Following cyclists' complaints last fall about no bike lanes with the proposed 12-foot lanes in each direction, the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) now presents a narrower median, 11-foot inner lanes and 14-foot outer lanes, with a new sidewalk on the north side of Sunset where bus stops today stand isolated in the grassy berm. For walkers that sidewalk makes the new plans an improvement.

Cyclists were at least skeptical about what they saw. While the plans include numerous "share the road" signs along the 14-foot lanes, Miami cyclists have lately become aware that wide lanes encourage speeding. Would painted "sharrows" on the 14-foot lanes underline the message of the signs? Some traffic engineers think sharrows work, but FDOT has yet to embrace this tool.

Everyone seemed to assume that speed on Sunset won't be decreased. But what if it could be? That's at least worth considering as you make your comments to FDOT project manager Hong Benitez.

For a few views of last night's meeting, see German Ma's album at Facebook.

Anti-texting campaign grips hearts

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood reports new developments in the quickening effort to stop people from driving while text-messaging. See Welcome to the Fast Lane.

Tweed Ride a fine outing

The Tweed Ride put on yesterday by Green Mobility Network drew a good crowd, a nice mix of ages, and some notably handsome get-ups. Here you see something less than 1/3 of the riders before the start at University Station in Coral Gables. The ride leader, Gary Mendenhall, is the kneeling fellow in the blue shirt and bow tie. He's looking at April 24 for the next ride. Watch here, at Green Mobility or on Facebook for details. At the latter page, check out Eddie's nice photos from yesterday.

BPAC meets Wednesday

Just a reminder: The Miami-Dade Bicycle-Pedestrian Advisory Committee is to meet Wednesday, March 24, in Room 18-3 at County Hall.

Let the silence speak for us all

Cyclists across America will be riding on May 19 in memory of our fallen brothers and sisters. In South Florida, the ride will start and finish at the Miami Seaquarium's west parking lot, on Virginia Key. Maria Luisa de Jesus, the ride's organizer for the Everglades Bicycle Club, says the Miami ride will start at 6:45 p.m. and wrap up at 8 p.m.

Here's information about this tradition and how it's observed in many other places Ride of Silence .

And here's a map to the Seaquarium:
View Larger Map

Second chance for bike lanes on Sunset

The state Department of Transportation (FDOT) is taking a second look at adding bike lanes to Sunset Drive just west of South Miami when it's repaved during 2011. They were prompted by a resolution from the Miami-Dade Bicycle-Pedestrian Advisory Committee, which reviewed the plans last month and recommended narrowing the median slightly to gain space enough for bike lanes.

When the plans for Sunset between SW 69th Avenue and SW 84th Place first came to notice last fall, several bicyclists in the general area asked for bike lanes but were told that the state's designation of Sunset as a historic highway made that impossible. However, it turns out that the 1983 law specifically allows bicycle paths if no historic structure has to be removed to build them.

FDOT has set up a public workshop for March 30 for all concerned to review the plans and offer input. Here are details of that:

• DATE: Tuesday, March 30
• TIME: 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
• PLACE: St. Matthews Episcopal Church, 7410 Sunset Drive, South Miami

If you ride in that area and want bike lanes, I recommend that you attend and be prepared to speak up.

Causeway alert: Tennis on Key Biscayne next week

Plan your Rickenbacker Causeway rides with special care for the next two weeks, folks. The Sony Ericsson Open begins again on Monday and runs through Sunday, April 4. That means extra motor traffic on Crandon Boulevard, and these drivers won't necessarily be familiar with the road. Evening play begins on the 24th. For the full schedule, click here.

Fixing the great mistake: Auto-centrism

From what's left of the park in New York City's Park Avenue, bike advocate Paul Steely White talks about the city's fateful wrong turn in the 20th century and how planners are now trying to correct course.

Mixed results on South Beach bike lanes

We have an update today, from Gabrielle Redfern of BASIC, following last week's Miami Beach meeting about planned bike lanes on several of the city's streets.

• Prairie preserved.

• 28th Street lost.

• 34th Street lost.

• Meridian: Maybe.

That is the scorecard of bike lanes from the City’s own Bicycle Master Plan that were discussed at Monday’s Capitol Improvement Projects Oversight Committee. Former commissioner and current Oversight Committee Chair Saul Gross stated he would not favor removing the bike lanes already on Prairie Avenue in Central Bayshore, but reminded Staff that the Commission was clear about not adding asphalt to roads during resurfacing to accommodate bike lanes.

(I have to wonder to myself, how does this man, known for a savvy political career filled with solomonic acts of compromise, think roadways are built? Bike lanes with no asphalt? It reminds me, especially this time of year, of ideas of making bricks with no straw. But I digress….)

The Basis of Design Report (BODR) for Central Bayshore Neighborhood was on the agenda. (A BODR is a Commission-approved narrative on current conditions and desired outcomes that guided the plans of this project to where it is today: at 100 percent drawings and out to bid. So to be discussing it now, and to change it, will require Commission approval, among other delaying issues.) The neighbors quibble with Staff over the interpretation of terms in the BODR. Neighbors are correct in saying that their neighborhood BODRs contained no mention of bike lanes. But that does not mean The City did not commit to building these much-needed alternative transportation options when projects involving those streets finally make their way to construction.

(The issue to the neighbors is too many cars going too fast on “their” neighborhood streets. My solution: If we get more folks riding their bicycles on the same streets, that means less cars, going slower, because there are so many bicycles -- so what is the problem?)

Part of the problem is that only one of those neighborhoods BODRs, the last one passed, West Avenue, mentions Bike Lanes. So who is right and what gets done or what gets taken out at the last minute?

Cue the Bicycle Master Plan, adopted in draft by the City Commission in the fall of 2007. I always believed that this document, also blessed by Commission vote, was intended as an “Overlay” to the 13 neighborhood BODRs. This plan came about after years of personal attempts to coordinate the street improvement projects of the Public Works Department and CIP GO BOND work to build bike lanes. Since the $92 million dollar Bond was passed in 1999, I attended hundreds of neighborhood workshops and planning meetings asking about bike lanes being incorporated into BODRs, and being told, “That’s a great idea” at one meeting, only to not see them in the plans as the concepts progressed, or told, “We will do one on the next street”. Finally, the City defaulted to bringing in a consultant, and after three years they produced the plan that looked at building a system and forwarding the notion the work required would be done when the neighborhood streets were improved with City projects.

Which brings us back to the bricks with no straw, or the bike lanes with no asphalt. Orchard Park, or part of the Nautilus Neighborhood CIP project was underway when the Bike Master Plan was passed. It took redrawing the plans after construction had started and doing a costly change order to install the lanes in the bike plan during the course of the project. The Commission expressed shock, not at the process, but the price, and proclaimed “No new asphalt for bike lanes unless you come back and ask us specifically.” The Staff took this to mean “No new asphalt for bike lanes” and stopped including them in planned neighborhood work. 28th street? No new asphalt, so no bike lane. Meridian? No new asphalt, so no bike lane. But there may be hope.

The Bike Master Plan called for Bike Lanes on ALL of Prairie, north of 44th Street. However, a secret deal was extracted during the construction of the New Beach High School between then principal Dr. Friedman, neighbors and City Staff that narrowed that road between High-Tide to Dade Boulevard and specifically excluded the bike lane. When the details came out, rather than scuttle the deal over the street, the Commission, specifically Commissioner Gross, promised me personally and on the record, the lane would shift going north at Hi-Tide to Meridian. (It was a compromise I could live with, in hopes of getting the marked lane to continue to Lincoln Road on Meridian, where there is plenty of ROW and asphalt already.) Commissioner Gross, to his credit, reiterated the promised shift on Monday. Bricks without straw.

There is more to this story including the proposed “compromise” of doing a 10-foot path in the green space adjacent to the Par Three Golf Course on 28th street, (more concrete, but no asphalt!), the additional parking added with a 90 degree configuration on 40th Street (more dangerous for bikes) and the notion that removing even a foot of asphalt in roadways and narrowing the travel lanes to 10 feet would make it even more dangerous for bikes, but those battles are still to be fought and won.

I get engaged all the time about biking and bike facilities in Miami Beach. I am an easy target to pick a verbal fight with about this. I feel so strongly about the need for required bike lanes and complete streets in our town because I know it is just the ticket to dramatically and frankly, quite easily, improve our community in so many ways. Until our City shows true leadership in making non-motorized facilities equitable with car transit, we will continue to endure gridlock and discourage folks from utilizing our natural temperate environment and flat terrain for mobility. As a small, urban island, we need all the congestion solutions we can get to ensure a high quality of life and a strong economic future.

Thanks to all who emailed your support, and a special shout out to the "Biking Barrons" who came to the meeting and spoke up for more bike lanes!

'Till next time....

Gabrielle

South Beach cycling alert

This advisory about 5th Street in Miami Beach, from the state Department of Transportation:

One eastbound lane or one westbound lane on 5th Street at Washington Avenue, at Meridian Avenue, and at Michigan Avenue will be closed Monday through Friday, between 9:30 a.m. and 3:00 p.m., March 15 through April 30, 2010.

Please back active community transportation today

Today, while bike activists from all over the country are lobbying on Capitol Hill, call your member of Congress and urge support for the Active Community Transportation Act of 2010. It is H.R. 4722. It would set up grants that metro areas could compete for to create local transportation networks with safe and convenient access for bicyclists and walkers. We need this to move away from the car-focused planning of the past 90 years.

Miami declaring bike month

Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado will issue a proclamation today setting March 2010 as Bicycle Action Month. If you could be at City Hall at 9 a.m. you could applaud his support. Would be good to do.

Feds 'get it' about cyclists' needs

Greg Nadeau, deputy administretor of th Federal Highway Administration, today at the National Bike Summit:

"Under this administration, bicyclists and pedestrians will no longer be considered an afterthought. ...

"It's our goal to increase the number of trips people take by biking and walking, and to increase the safety of those trips."

Blumenauer rallies bike advocates

Rep. Earl Blumenauer of Oregon challenged bicyclists at the National Bike Summit today to take the enthusiasm and energy of this meeting back to their hometowns. He highlighted an effort to expand the popular Safe Routes to School program to high schools.

"Childhood obesity spikes in the teen years," he said. "We want to make sure there is a bike culture to compete with the car culture."

Safe Routes expansion is proposed in S. 1156, whose sponsors include Florida's Sen. Bill Nelson, and H.R. 4021, which so far has no Florida sponsors.

Google adds bike directions

Starting today, you can find bicycle routes on Google. The Internet search giant is announcing the new service today at the National Bike Summit. The beta version of the bike-route addition to Google's powerful map engine may be found at http://maps.google.com/biking. Try it, please, and comment here on how you like it.

New Flamingo trail a cyclist's delight

The new Guy Bradley Trail at Flamingo in Everglades National Park is a fine addition to one of the loveliest campgrounds I have visited. Bicycling campers will enjoy the path's shoreline views, and nature-lovers, on foot or bike, will welcome the chance to view osprey and other birds in their native surroundings.

Bradley was an Audubon game warden killed by plume hunters in 1905 offshore from Flamingo, a tiny fishing village a century ago. The man who shot him surrendered and spent five months in jail at Key West before trial. He pleaded self-defense and was acquitted. The case sparked a wave of resentment of the trade that collected feathers for hat-makers' use. In response, several states adopted bird-protection laws.

There's nothing fancy about the trail or the campground, but the setting is rare and wonderful. The park has brought the site back from a wasteland following the 2005 hurricanes. Do be prepared for mosquitoes, though. They thrive in the coastal wetland, even on chilly nights.

Lawsuit blames texting in cyclist's death

The widow of a Naples man who was killed on his bicycle in 2008 is suing the driver who was convicted of failing to stop at a stop sign in the case. Lawrence A. Daniels, 42, lost his driver's license for six months after James Caskey Jr., 62, was struck and killed during his daily bike ride in North Naples. Margaret Caskey's lawsuit in Collier County Circuit Court contends that Daniels was texting on his cellphone and took his eyes off the road before running the stop sign and hitting her husband. Read more in the Naples Daily News.

Find your bike gear for the kids of Cuba

A couple of Miami-area cyclists are collecting bicycle gear for a priest who's been introducing young folk to cycling back home in Placetas, Cuba. If you've got usable tires, tubes, jerseys, etc. -- any parts or gear cluttering your closet because it's too good to throw away -- Father Juan Ivo can take it home next week and put it to good use. Mike Gomez of the Everglades Bicycle Club says Ivo will be in Miami until the 11th.

Up to 5 p.m. on the 10th, you can drop off things for Ivo's young riders at:

TGSV Enterprises
1301 West 68th St.
Hialeah, FL 33014

or

GEC Associates
9487 NW 12th St.
Doral, FL 33172

A bid to redress transportation imbalance

Rep. Earl Blumenauer of Oregon filed a bill yesterday that attempts to direct a fair share of federal transportation aid to facilities that bicyclists and walkers can use. If the Active Community Transportation Act goes through, it will redress the famous imbalance that has favored costly highways, even while bike commuting grew 43 percent in a decade and increasing numbers of Americans took up cycling for their health or to avoid buying gasoline.

The bill, H.R. 4722, proposes a contest among localities for grants to complete active transportation networks, with potential grants of $5 million to $15 million per year for up to three years. It's a concept similar to the TIGER grants awarded last month, which saw unprecedented competition for stimulus money aimed at greenways, rapid transit and other energy-thrifty transportation facilities.

Teens delay their turn in driver's seat

Could we be on the cusp of a bicycle generation? It's a fair question in light of new data showing that American teenagers are postponing the day they qualify for a driver's license. Driving the family car, or one's own, may no longer be the coveted rite of passage that it was for baby boomers. You can read more about it at the Washington Post.

It's Florida Bicycle Month; let's go ride!

Gov. Charlie Crist signed a proclamation today making March 2010 Florida Bicycle Month. It's nice to have that recognition, but what really counts is what we do with our bikes and enthusiasm. So ride, baby, ride, and share some of your thoughts and photos about where your two wheels take you.