Saturday, July 25, 2015

HIGHWAY OCHO NO MORE -- PLUS URBIA DESIGN'S TAMED SW 8TH STREET ENCHANTS SOUTH FLORIDA BUSINESS JOURNAL

Highway or walkway? State considers options for Miami’s Calle Ocho

The fate of Miami’s famed Calle Ocho is in the hands of state transportation officials who will decide whether the street should be a more efficient highway or become more pedestrian friendly.

The Florida Department of Transportation conducted a planning study for Southwest 8th Street and Southwest 7th Street from Brickell Avenue to Southwest 27th Street. The area extends from Miami’s Brickell financial district, across the clogged Interstate 95 entries, into historic Little Havana. The state is about to begin a project development and environmental (PD&E) phase that could lead to major changes on Calle Ocho.

The street is also home to the Calle Ocho parade and music festival every March.

Currently, both streets feature three one-way lanes. Southwest 8th Street (Calle Ocho) heads east and Southwest 7th Street goes west. Local architecture firm Plus Urbia developed a preliminary plan to make the street more welcoming to pedestrians, bicyclists and public transit while slowing car traffic down.



Juan Mullerat, founder of PlusUrbia and a resident in the area, said Calle Ocho is more like a highway than a main street. He’s heard from many businesses there that want more options for pedestrians.

“I have two daughters and I push a stroller down that street,” Mullerat said. “When cars are driving by at 50 miles per hour it make it less enjoyable. With a one-way traffic pattern, the cars feel they can go faster. Two-way streets are always better for commercial streets.”

PlusUrbia, the same firm that designed the rezoning changes in Wynwood, has a plan for one direction each of two-way traffic on both Southwest 7th and 8th Streets with an added bus lane and bike lane. The sidewalks would be widened to nine feet and the street-side parking would remain.
The design by PlusUrbia apply to the intersection with Southwest 17th Avenue and the adjoining blocks. The question is how traffic would be impacted further east, where there’s a daily crunch of cars moving between Interstate 95 and Brickell.

“This dense urban corridor has seen significant growth in the last decade with high-density high-rise developments and its operation is expected to be impacted with increased traffic volumes by several new major development projects currently proposed within the Brickell area,” FDOT spokeswoman Ivette Ruiz-Paz said.




The study's goals include improving access to Brickell and the highway interchange, making the street more pedestrian friendly, and promoting multi-modal transportation, she added. The PD&E study will begin in winter 2016 and should last two or three years.

However, Ruiz-Paz said FDOT has short-term pedestrian improvements to Calle Ocho that are coming within the next few years, including traffic control and pedestrian crossing signals.

Mullerat, who is on the steering committee for the FDOT study, said the state is focusing too much on traffic and not on the experience for the people and businesses who live there. Having a flashing light at a pedestrian crosswalk doesn’t help much when cars are driving by so fast, he said.

“The solution we are seeing are car oriented and we shouldn’t be in the business of moving cars. We should be in the business of moving people,” Mullerat said. “The solution I feel FDOT is moving toward is more cars, a better way of moving cars down the street and that is not what we are looking for. That is using Calle Ocho as a transit corridor at the expense of people living there. We are getting choked by traffic.”

Mullerat wants to hold a public forum of local stakeholders, so FDOT can hear what residents and businesses think.

“We need to get presentations from people who know what they are talking about,” Mullerat said. “If DOT decides to only put palm trees and benches, that is not what merchants want.”

http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/news/2015/07/24/highway-or-walkway-state-considers-options-for.html 


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