MIAMI-DADE COUNTY MUST FOLLOW SUIT, SO MAJOR COUNTY STREETS REMAIN BARRIER FREE FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES AND ALL PEDESTRIANS
I had the privilege of speaking in favor of FR 1 – (Ordinance 19073, to keep sidewalks safe and open during construction) at the Miami City Commission meeting this week.
I applaud Commissioners for creating and sponsoring this
legislation.
After serving the District 3 constituents for nearly a
decade, my next career direction was marketing urban design and working as a
town planner.
My specialty is pedestrian access and mobility for people
with disabilities.
Cities that work are cities that remove barriers to
pedestrian safety.
Safe sidewalks protect children and elderly while greatly
increasing the economic outlook for mom and pop shops, restaurants and services
that depend on foot traffic in our urban city.
In my work around the world to promote wheelchair access, I have sadly shown a
segment of downtown Miami just west of the World Center where both sides of the
street are completely shut down for years of high rise construction.
Out of the 100 cities I have worked in, the both sides
blocked – between a billion dollar development and a billion dollar Bright Line
Train Transit system – was the worst example of pedestrian safety and mobility
for people with disabilities.
Other cities solve this by requiring scaffolding or other
ways of keeping sidewalks.
I returned yesterday from work in Manhattan.
I walked past more than 100 construction sites.
100% of the time, the sidewalk was maintained.
Miami MUST match NYC’s success at maintaining pedestrian
mobility.
This is crucial for people with disabilities.
People with disabilities are the most under and
unemployed of any minority group.
That is NOT because of their disability, it is because of
the obstructions that we allow that ruin sidewalk mobility and the access it
provides to transit.
Developers may say this is an onerous cost.
I say that anyone who puts the basic human rights and
dignity of disabled people to a cost benefit analysis is being shamefully
inhumane.
I urge the five Miami City Commissioners to approve this
unanimously, when it returns for second reading.
It can be the first step (ticketing and towing cars the
perpetually block sidewalks would be another huge boost to safety for disabled
veterans and others) toward Miami delivering the mobility its residents
deserve.
Read FR 1: https://miamifl.iqm2.com/Citizens/FileOpen.aspx?Type=14&ID=3893&Inline=True
