FDOT wants to improve NW 36th St. travel. Springs mayor: Not through our ‘living room’
.jpg "Florida’s Department of Transportation has proposed plans to make travel safer along 9 miles of Northwest 36th Street from the Palmetto Expressway to US 1.")
Florida’s Department of Transportation has proposed plans to make travel safer along nine miles of Northwest 36th Street from the Palmetto Expressway to U.S. 1., including an elevated road for part of the route. And that has at least one Miami Springs official worried.
FDOT says its plans would relieve congestion and increase connectivity along a section of Northwest 36th Street that includes unincorporated Miami-Dade County, Virginia Gardens, Miami Springs, and the city of Miami.
About 70,000 vehicles, including 7,000 trucks, travel daily along Northwest 36th Street, FDOT says. The street is also known as State Road 948, as well as Doral Boulevard, Virginia Gardens Boulevard and Miami Springs Boulevard.
But critics fear the plans would change the character of Miami Springs — in the same way, they say, that changes made under the FDOT have adversely affected a nearby community.
“They have allowed exponential growth in Doral without providing for infrastructure, and there is a lot of freight and traffic going in and out of there,” Miami Springs Mayor Maria Mitchell said at Monday’s City Council meeting of the FDOT. “Now they want to provide more passage east and west, which is fine, but it can’t be through our living room.”
Miami Spring is a three-square-mile city that sits north of Miami International Airport. Its “living room” runs from Northwest 57th Avenue to Le Jeune Road.
The proposed nine-mile FDOT improvement project would begin at the Palmetto Expressway, near the Doral border, continue past the county’s Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center, and skirt by the Village of Virginia Gardens,
The FDOT shows that the project would continue through the city of Miami and end at Biscayne Boulevard.
The area has long been shown to be a high-accident area: Miami-Dade County police have logged 97 crash reports at the intersection of Northwest 57th Avenue and 36th Street, also known as Curtiss Parkway — a route often used by commuters as a cut-through road to and from Hialeah — from Jan. 2016 to March 2021. That is according to a 37-page grid sheet obtained by the Herald through a public records request. The 97 reports include 13 hit-and-runs and six fatalities.
“We had two meetings with them [FDOT] last week, and we were told that they’re almost completing their study phase,” said Mitchell. “Basically, it comes down to three options.”
FDOT eyes three options
The first option was making no changes, Mitchell said. The second option would “tweak the traffic signals to improve traffic.”
“The third option is pretty drastic. It involves the possibility of an elevated road over Northwest 36th Street, similar to what is currently at Northwest 25th Street, in Doral, or expanding the lanes, cutting into the airport,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell was referring to FDOT’s Northwest 25th Street “viaduct project” off the Palmetto Expressway, also known as SR 826, which was completed in 2016 at a cost of $63 million. The viaduct is elevated about 30 feet and serves as a “vital and continuous link for cargo traffic traveling to and from Miami International Airport’s West Cargo Area, FDOT said.
FDOT has not yet released estimates for its proposed nine-mile Northwest 36th Street project.
Though placed on the Miami Springs City Council’s Nov. 8 agenda, there was no public opposition to FDOT’s plans at the meeting.
“This planning study will result in the development of improvements that will address mobility, operational, social, economic, and safety needs of this diverse corridor,” FDOT said in a press release.
FDOT encourages the public to get involved by providing comments, questions, and suggestions on the project it describes as: “SR 948/NW 36 St from SR 826/Palmetto Expwy to SR 5/US 1/Biscayne Blvd.”
Meanwhile, Mitchell says there is a better solution.
“The logical choice for increasing traffic east and west is 836 Expressway,” Mitchell said. “There is plenty of room there to expand.”
For information on upcoming public workshops and project updates, visit: http://www.fdotmiamidade.com/nw36stplanning.html
Springs’ property tax rates high
About 10 years ago, Miami Springs city leaders pushed for rapid hotel expansion along its Northwest 36th Street commercial district corridor with pledges it would result in lower property-tax rates. However, its property tax rates remain among the county’s highest.
Effective Oct. 1, Miami Springs has set its property-tax rate at 7.2095 for every $1,000 of taxable home value. (In comparison, other River Cities’ locales have set their property tax rates as follows, according to the Miami-Dade Property Appraiser’s Office: - Town of Medley, 3.9000; Village of Virginia Gardens, 4.9000; Hialeah, 6.3018; Hialeah Gardens, 5.1613; Doral, 1.9000.)
On Monday, Miami Springs Councilwoman Jacky Bravo suggested on-street parking charges as another way to reduce taxes.
“This can also help with reducing taxes,” Bravo said. “I would rather pay a hundred bucks for the year, I’m just throwing a number out there, but I save maybe in the next year or two, I save $500 or $1,000 every year or every other year on my property taxes.”
Aside from high taxes, an unintended consequence of the city’s hotel-expansion campaign has been a surge in crime. Last July, Miami Springs approved building 8-foot fences along parts of Northwest 36th Street to reign in shootings and other crimes.
The once-quiet bedroom community of Miami Springs now has 21 hotels. More construction is underway that includes a nearly 100,000-square-foot mixed-use project at the city’s entrance. Unnerved by heavy traffic, the city approved lane changes and detour signs around its town circle to combat road rage.
“Northwest 36th Street is really the only means the majority of us utilize to get in and out of Miami Springs,” Miami Springs Mayor Mitchell said.
Mitchell last proposed another way out of the city three years ago, when she lobbied county officials to a build a $2 million pedestrian bridge that would connect the city with the Metrorail station, located at 2005 W. Okeechobee Road, in Hialeah. The project was a cornerstone of her election campaign.
However, locals last August stormed into City Hall after a Herald story showed the bridge would link to Metro Grande, a $62,663,477 project in the “pre-development” stage that includes three eight-story towers, as well as 10,000 square feet of retail office space. Metro Grande will sit above a 3.49-acre parking lot fronting the Okeechobee Metrorail station and provide about 250 units from “extremely low-income up to market rate units,” according to a county resolution passed last October.
Neighbors collected 659 signatures opposing the bridge citing the “danger posed to our community.” Mitchell and the City Council abruptly reversed course and voted 5-0 to “postpone” construction of the bridge.
The next Miami Springs City Council meeting is at 7 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 13, at 201 Westward Dr. The meeting will be broadcast live at https://www.miamisprings-fl.gov/meetings.
Those who cannot attend in person may email their comments, which will become part of the meeting’s official record, to cityclerk@miamisprings-fl.gov.
Theo Karantsalis can be reached at karantsalis@bellsouth.net.