The Street Plans Collaborative is working with the Flamingo Park Neighborhood Association to help articulate the vision for safer neighborhood streets in Miami Beach. Located in the heart the City's Art Deco historic district, Flamingo Park is home to an outdated automobile infrastructure that encourages motorists to speed in an otherwise highly walkable urban neighborhood. Working alongside local advocates, TSPC is recommending the City undertake a significant "road diets" approach to calm the neighborhood's north-south avenues, which currently feature 17' travel lanes. inadequate shade trees, and narrow 5' sidewalks.

--
The Street Plans Collaborative
Flamingo Park Street Redesign Workshop Initiative
Report Memorandum -- August 2, 2010

This memorandum is intended to summarize the results from the Flamingo Park Neighborhood Association’s (FPNA) Better Street Design Advocacy Workshop held on August 2, 2010. The Street Plans Collaborative, Inc. is pleased to have contributed to these important efforts. We hope the FPNA will consider our firm as an ongoing resource as this important advocacy effort continues to move forward.

To be sure, numerous emails sent over the past few days have summarized the challenges involved with advocating for sensible street redesign solutions in the Flamingo Park Neighborhood. However, the success of the FPNA’s advocacy efforts --this week and the many leading up to it— have been well-documented by FPNA’s leaders, including Denis, Randall, Judy, Xavier, Adam, Wanda, Steve, Tammy, and several others. If one thing was clear, it’s that the City of Miami Beach understands the neighborhood’s well-organized position on the FPNA’s position on the myriad of issues at hand. What follows is a summary of this position, which is supported by our recommendations.

Recommendations:

Curb-to-curb street reconfiguration

While it is preferred that the neighborhood continue advocating for a 7’-10’ -10’– 7’ curb-to-curb configuration on all streets except for Euclid Avenue, 8’ parking will not greatly disturb the overall integrity of the street design so long as the movement lanes remain at 10’. To be clear, there are many examples of 7’ parking lanes proving to be safe and desirable. The Street Plans Collaborative is happy to furnish said examples upon request. Yet, our notes indicate that Jeff Cohen of Miami-Dade County stated that 7’ parking lanes would only be appropriate when complimented by a two-foot valley gutter, effectively making the total non-travel lane width 9’. See below for our opinion on this design solution.

Valley Gutter

Using a valley gutters to handle stormwater was proposed as a possible solution to keep parking lanes narrow (7’). The valley gutter would be placed between the travel lane and vehicular parking lane. We believe this to be an unnecessary solution because:

1) it causes the motorist to more frequently step into flowing water during a storm event;

2) it may be 7’ for the paved parking lane, but it adds a potential two feet to the parking lane, without taking away space from the travel lane; better to keep an 8’ parking lane with a traditional curb and gutter;

3) Motorists are apt to park squarely on the valley of the gutter

See the photos attached to the email to see how this is being applied in the downtown Miami.

Neighborhood Bikeways

The Street Plans Collaborative recognizes and supports the relative importance of dedicated bicycle facilities in supporting non-motorized transportation. Thus, it is our recommendation that the inclusion of a dedicated, well-designed north-south bikeway in the Flamingo Park Neighborhood remains on Euclid Avenue. This bikeway “spine” will help concentrate cyclists and provide an identifiable north-south corridor for bicycle travel between the SoFi and Flamingo Park neighborhoods. It will also provide needed connections to the existing 16th Street Bicycle Lane.

Alternatively, Shared Use Lane Markings (sharrows) may be considered on other streets, including 11th Street and Meridian Avenue where bicycle travel is common but ROW/context does not allow/require a dedicated bicycle lane facility. In conjunction with the proposed sharrows on Washington Avenue, and proposed bicycle lanes on Euclid and Alton, the neighborhood will be well-served by bikeways connecting important citywide destinations.

Finally, it is recommended that when a bicycle lane is placed between the parking lane and the travel lane, that the bicycle lane meet the minimum standard of 5’. Furthermore, it is recommended that the parking lane be 8’ wide, and not the 7’ as previously proposed. This is consistent with national best bikeway practices, and is supported by Miami-Dade County’s own standards.

We concur that the FPNA should support the Miami Beach City Commission in revising the BODR to include the above proposed 5’ bicycle lanes on Euclid Avenue,  in return for achieving a curb-to-curb configuration not in exceed a 8’-10’-10’-8’ (36’) section on all other north-south local neighborhood streets (Lenox, Michigan, Etc.)

Bulb-outs

It is our recommendation that the FPNA continue advocating for bulb-outs in the neighborhood. Significant research from around the country demonstrates that these traffic-calming devices not only calm traffic when implemented in conjunction with narrow travel lanes, but also reduce the crossing distance for pedestrians. Additionally, the added visibility and reduction in time required to cross the street is particularly important for our society’s most vulnerable street users: children and the elderly. Indeed, the City will only be better off if it actively fosters an environment in Miami Beach where it is increasingly safe to “age in place.”

Swales, sidewalks, encroachments

The swale-sidewalk configuration has yet to be determined in detail, as too many factors remain unknown. However, we concur with the FPNA that reorganizing the pedestrian zone and the planting zone to be conducive to walking and providing a shaded environment must be a priority. At a minimum, 6’+ of unobstructed sidewalk space is essential to creating an environment that is comfortable for pedestrian circulation within the neighborhood.

Per the comments of Steve Mouzon and other FPNA leaders, it seems the City should further study the required planting strip width for the planting of street trees that may reach the desired canopy.

Additionally, the planting zone should be designed flexibly so that the space between the tree/vegetation plantings accommodate a variety of amenities (street furniture, signs, bicycle parking, newspaper vending, etc.) This will help keep such elements out of the sidewalk and organize the street in a manner that maximizes walkability.

Finally, the issue of encroachment remains an issue that is unlikely to be solved without fervent debate. It is our opinion that rather than reclaiming the encroachments outright, a nuanced approach is necessary. Primarily we recommend that the City of Miami Beach begin enforcing the current ordinance requiring property owners to maintain their hedge and tree growth in a manner that minimizes their impact on the sidewalk. As other FPNA members have already pointed out, much of the neighborhood’s character is derived from the great variety of gates, walls, hedges, and plantings that help define the neighborhood’s public and private realm. While, some of the issues associated with hedge and other property encroachments may be alleviated by the eventual presence of wider sidewalks, reasonable enforcement could greatly improve the existing condition of the sidewalk.

The Re-Classification of Pennsylvania Avenue

Given its current function, the Collector Road’ classification bestowed upon Pennsylvania Avenue is unjustified. However, according to the Federal Highway Administration, a Collector Road:

“… provides access to property and traffic circulation within residential, commercial and industrial areas. Facilities on the collector system may penetrate residential neighborhoods. Collectors distribute trips from the arterials through the area to the ultimate destination. Collector streets collect traffic from local streets in residential neighborhoods and channel it into the arterial system. Collector systems may include the street grid which forms a logical entity for traffic circulation the street grid that forms a logical entity for traffic circulation.”

Pennsylvania Avenue has the same characteristics as all of the other north-south avenues, save for Meridian Avenue. Indeed, it maintains the same 70’ ROW and 50’ curb-to-curb section. However, because the above FHWA definition is so vague, it may be plausible by applying the definition alone to Pennsylvania to confirm its current status as a Collector Road. Thus, we recommend that the FPNA advocate for the City and County to undertake a real study of how the street is currently performing, especially as it relates to origin-destination data, as much of the traffic may indeed be coming from those simply circling the block and not from those using the street as thoroughfare for accessing other main east-west or north-south vehicular routes in Miami Beach.

For your reference, the text below is from the FHWA website on Functional classification, which may be of some interest when advocating for de-classifying Pennsylvania:

The importance of the functional classification process as it relates to highway design lies in the fact that functional classification decisions are made well before an individual project is selected to move into the design phase. Moreover, such decisions are made on a system-wide basis by city, county, or State DOTS or MPOs as part of their continuing long range transportation planning functions. Such systematic reassessments are typically undertaken on a relatively infrequent basis. Thus, the functional classification of a particular section of highway may well represent a decision made 10 or more years ago.

Even after the decision has been made to functionally classify a highway section, there is still a degree of flexibility in the major controlling factor of design speed. It is important to remember that there are no "cookie cutter" designs for arterial highways or collector streets. Because of the range of geometric design options available, arterials and collectors can vary considerably.

The Need To Update Highway Functional Classifications

Traffic service patterns on a roadway and the roadway's function can change over time. If the functional classification system for a specific jurisdiction is not updated on a regular basis, roadways may be designed using inappropriate design standards.

The Functional Classification Process Is Not an Exact Science

One of the difficulties surrounding the relationship between highway functional classification and design guidelines is that the classification process is not an exact science. The predominant traffic service associated with a particular route cannot be definitely determined without exhaustive surveys of traffic origin/destination patterns on each link of the road network. Engineering judgment based on experience must play a role in making design decisions.

It is recommended that the FPNA work with the City of Miami Beach, Miami-Dade County and the FDOT to redefine Pennsylvania Avenue as a local street. In the meantime, an 11’ lane and 8’ parking may have to be implemented, which is not recommended as an acceptable street section for the remaining segments of Pennsylvania Avenue, or any other north-south Avenues in the Flamingo Park Neighborhood. However, 11’ travel lanes will certainly present an improvement over the existing 17’ condition!

Finally, our preliminary research does not allow us to estimate how long the re-designation process is likely to take. Regardless, this is a fight worth fighting, and we expect that when further analysis will reveal that Pennsylvania Avenue truly functions as a local street and should be designed to the same standards as other local streets within the Flamingo Park neighborhood, as promised by the City of Miami Beach.