The fight over the 87th Avenue bridge is back after last-minute county vote

County commissioners on Tuesday advanced a plan to build a bridge extending Southwest 87th Avenue over a drainage canal, rejecting a request by Miami-Dade’s mayor to delay a vote on the last-minute item.

Commissioner Danielle Cohen Higgins introduced the item Monday night, and the commission chair used emergency powers granted during the COVID crisis to put it on the agenda without risk of being blocked as a late-filed legislation. It passed without objection, setting up a showdown vote later in the year in front of the countywide Transportation Planning Organization, a board where the commission holds a majority of the seats.

The Cohen Higgins item reserves $3.1 million in road impact fees for the proposed county bridge and instructs Mayor Daniella Levine Cava’s administration to do whatever is needed to get it built.

Levine Cava opposed the project as a county commissioner, representing the area on either side of the proposed bridge. Cohen Higgins won an appointment to Levine Cava’s District 8 seat in December after voicing support for the bridge, and the resolution made public Monday night marked the start of her first high-profile fight on the commission.

She described “debilitating” traffic in the suburban area she represents, and the bridge as a common sense fix that would make a major road easier to travel. “When I say debilitating, I mean debilitating,” she said. “I mean taking 45 minutes to go a few blocks. I mean the complete inability to even reverse out of your driveway.”

The commission’s chairman, Jose “Pepe” Diaz, used emergency authority granted last year at the start of the COVID-19 emergency to protect the bridge item from last-minute delays.

The rules only apply to states of emergency, and allow the commission chairman to waive committee hearings and prevent individual commissioners from blocking legislation submitted within four days of a meeting. Diaz has used the authority to get multiple items on meeting agendas in recent weeks as the committee system shifts to a new structure created by the recently elected chairman.

In her comments, Levine Cava asked her District 8 successor to delay the vote. “I do think it’s very unfortunate this came on this last-minute item,” she said. “I would seriously ask that you reconsider whether you would defer it” to a later meeting. Diaz responded, saying that with the transportation board having the final say, “I really don’t see it as a problem.”

A Levine Cava spokeswoman said later the mayor would not veto the Cohen Higgins legislation, clearing the way for the transportation board vote. A date for that vote has not been announced.

Cohen Higgins noted the project didn’t face a commission vote before its last hearing at the Transportation Planning Organization, where the 13 county commissioners cast a majority of votes alongside municipal office holders.

The project stalled there in 2018 when the TPO board heeded Levine Cava’s objections that the bridge would “destroy more neighborhoods” than it would help. A 2014 county traffic study disagreed with Levine Cava, estimating traffic would drop as cars were diverted from neighborhood roads onto Southwest 87th Avenue during trips north and south.

The project has divided two suburban communities in District 8.

The bridge would go over the Cutler Drain Canal in Palmetto Bay, which opposes the project for its potential to draw more traffic through the municipality.

“It’s a cheap Band-Aid,” said Palmetto Bay Mayor Karyn Cunningham, who said she learned about the Cohen Higgins legislation on Monday. “This would take all the traffic that piles up south of the canal and dump it” at Southwest 141st Street, where 87th Avenue hits another canal.

Cutler Bay, south of Palmetto Bay, supports the bridge connecting 164th Street with 163rd Terrace as a way to give residents another commuting option out of the neighborhoods.

“We have 50,000 residents here in Cutler Bay, and another 50,000 living south of us,” said Cutler Bay Mayor Tim Meerbott. “We’re bottle-necked.”

This story was originally published February 1, 2021 at 8:48 PM.