Tuesday, November 01, 2011
Traffic gridlock, the Genting plan and the Miami Heat arena ... by gimleteye
You have to shake your head. Micky Arison, Miami Heat owner, made the Miami Herald for warning about traffic gridlock in downtown Miami if the Genting and Sands casinos ever get permitted. "The most prominent critic to speak against the casinos." A question: how did the Miami Heat Arena (or the Performing Arsht Center, for that matter) get permitted for an arena with the traffic nightmare they caused? Any sentient being would have taken a look at the single lane Biscayne Boulevard exit from 395 East and the towering condos planning to accommodate thousands of new residents and have reached an obvious conclusion: this (traffic pattern) ain't ever gonna work. Now we have museums under construction served by the same transit point. If you have ever tried to use that 395 exit, when both the PAC and the Heat are playing, you know the failure of planners and government officials to blink at the mess they unleashed is one of Miami's leading indicators. Sea levels are rising, government committees have met and disbanded, and the Herald gives a front page story to Micky Arison's concern about downtown traffic. Wow.
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8 comments:
What ever happened to the Climate Change Committee that Harvey Ruvin chaired? They had science reports suggesting problems with drainage and saltwater intrusion into the water supply. Did they make any recommendations on what to do about it?
Poor Mickey Arinson...his tale of woe in the Miami Herald almost brought me to tears: The HEAT season ticket holders might not go to all the games because of traffic. So very sad. His argument fell on my DEAF ears - the billionaire Arinson got OUR public land, for free, damn it...
at least Genting is PAYING for it's land.
As a member of that Climate Change Committee, I can report that it has been absorbed into a larger multi-county regional project to study mitigation of GHGs and adaptation to climate change and sea-level rise. There are extensive recommendations from our meetings on what to do about drainage, salt water intrusion, and other consequences of climate change. One of our significant recommendations was beginning to raise portions of the city above grade as they get redeveloped, with premium public transit and fortified drainage infrastructure, and that developers should be asked to fund this. This has been done in numerous cities around the world (Chicago is 20-40 feet higher than it used to be, so is London's Canary Wharf District, and many others). Did the Commissioners and City and County leadership listen to us?
p.s. Guillermo Olmedillo, Vice Chair of one of these committees then became the applicant on behalf of one of the UDB expansion developers to pave over wetlands, contradicting his own committee's recommendations to preserve and restore wetlands and unbuilt areas outside of the UDB for the purposes of groundwater recharge to fight saltwater intrusion. Shame on him.
What about the mess the new building is causing on the corner of Ponce and Lejuenne? It's barely out of the ground and already traffic is unbearable, imagine when it's done??
I have no problem with urban infill. Buildings in urban locations generate less traffic than those in disconnected, unwalkable, suburban sprawl.
Those climate change recommendations need to be put into the county master plan, and the capital budget - even as unfounded projects. Maybe the new Planning Director should be given these recommendations to review.
Well said Miami Urbanist! Traffic is a side issue when it comes to development - whether about the casino or other urban infill. We need transit now!
FEC Corridor. About time the FEC Corridor got used for passenger traffic. The tracks run north-south through Park West.
Hello, County? City?
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