Our Streets
Run for Your Life
Downtown Miami illustrates what Brazilian urbanist Jaime Lerner calls Urban Cholesterol — the excessive and dangerous use of cars in our arteries.
Crossing the intersection between SE 3rd Avenue and SE 2nd Street is almost a suicidal act. When pedestrians start for the opposite sidewalk, motorists accelerate. In bullfighting they use the term embestir, to charge furiously.
Not surprisingly, our beautiful Miami is among the eleven most dangerous cities for pedestrians. Which makes all the more welcome Mayor Francis Suarez’s resolution to impose speed limits in residential neighborhoods, lowering them to 20 and 25 miles per hour.
The facts are clear, according to the National Safety Association: 5 percent of pedestrians die when struck by vehicles traveling at 20 miles per hour. At 30 mph, 40 percent die. At 40 miles, 80 percent die.
But downtown proper poses a zoning challenge: it is not only a business district, but a judicial, tourism and entertainment center, and a residential neighborhood as well.
Downtown News asked Mayor Francis Suarez: Is downtown included in the resolution? He redirected the question to Sandra Harris, Director of the City of Miami Office of Transportation Management. “Downtown, Omni, Park West, Virginia Key, and Dodge Island neighborhoods were not included in the speed reduction analysis as they lack sufficient single‐family homes and local residential roadways. Note that the 25-mph speed limit is only applicable to City roadways and excludes county and state maintained roadways based on Miami-Dade County policy.”
Maybe the solution is not signage, countered noted urbanist Victor Dover, but redesigning streets to ensure adequate speeds. “Speed kills. The design speed is more important than the posted speed. At high speeds, little mistakes cause giant injuries.”
Meanwhile, coming or going from Wholefoods, at the intersection of 2nd St. and 3rd Ave., run for your life!
