With the help of The Underline, comes a safer future for pedestrians and cyclists | Editorial
The Miami-Dade-Fort Lauderdale region was just rated among the most dangerous for pedestrians and bicyclists. Truth be told, that’s nothing new. We have long been a car-centric region. Vehicles are kings of the road here, pedestrian and bicyclists second-class, and endangered, citizens.
But in the year of the pandemic, during which many of us have acquired a fondness for long walks and bicycle rides — and just as Phase I of The Underline, a long-awaited park below the elevated Metrorail tracks stretching from Brickell to the South Miami area opened its first leg last month — it’s concerning to learn that the battle among pedestrians, bicyclists and vehicles continues in high gear. As the pandemic recedes, that’s one “normal” to which we should not return.
“During COVID, we learned how connecting with nature improves mental and physical health … and without us driving everywhere, nature flourished globally,” Meg Daly, founder, president and CEO with the Friends of The Underline, told the Editorial Board.
Daly says The Underline is not just a place, it’s the birth of a new way of life for locals.
“Phase 1 is the beginning of a movement to build a city with a better quality of life, with mobility and access to public green spaces,” Daly said. Perfect timing for such an overhaul, we think.
As she describes it: “When done, the entire project will be a 120-acre pollinator park, an urban reforestation initiate, a platform for health and wellness programs, a destination for public art, a place to connect with your neighborhood,” usually as you walk or bike.
Unfortunately, Florida retained its No. 1 spot in the country as the place where a pedestrian is most likely to be struck and killed by a driver, according to the 2021 “Dangerous By Design” report from Smart Growth America and the National Complete Streets Coalition.
Nine of the 15 most hazardous U.S. cities for pedestrians are in Florida, with Orlando ranked as least safe and the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metropolis ranked No. 13 in the recently released biennial study.
Action is being taken to address the high fatality rate. Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava has said she wants to improve pedestrian and cyclists safety. Toward that goal, Miami-Dade Police is conducting a safety campaign. Working with the University of North Florida, the department will be able to access data that pinpoints which locations throughout the county are plagued by frequent pedestrian and cyclist accidents. That’s a good step.
The department said it will be sending officers to those locations during the days and times when most accidents occur to enforce traffic laws for motorists, pedestrians and bicyclists alike. After all, this is a three-way effort.
Daly, herself, has experienced the dangers at high-traffic intersections while biking along The Underline. “Unsafe conditions for cyclists and pedestrians affects the broader community not just The Underline, but The Underline is working to vastly improve the crosswalks along US 1 to allow for more capacity, longer cross time and design that makes it much safer to walk and bike.”
The bottom line is that we must strive for safer streets for all. This requires better infrastructure that allows people to walk, bike, take mass transit and drive safely.
Motorists must respect pedestrians and cyclists, not bully them off the road.
More than ever, and after the year we’ve been through, we should learn to co-exist on our roadways.
But Daly already recognizes this, when she wrote a first-person account of riding the stretch and found
This story was originally published March 18, 2021 at 6:00 AM.
