Common Sense Changes Needed on Brickell Avenue

Brickell Avenue is due to get a much needed redo next year.  With tens of thousands of new residents, millions of square feet of new office space, and hundreds of new hotel rooms, this is a great opportunity to fix many of the safety and design issues created as a result of the massive influx of new people.  Upcoming changes will affect the neighborhood for years to come.

A few weeks ago I gave 5 reasons for a pedestrian oriented Brickell Avenue.  As a follow up, here are 17 changes (in no particular order) that are needed to make that dream a reality.

1. Crosswalks on Both Sides of the Street at Every Intersection -  Every intersection on Brickell Avenue needs a crosswalk on both the north and south sides of the streets.  Who in their right mind is going to cross to the opposite side of the street and back again to use a crosswalk?  This design exposes pedestrians to added risk, by making them cross three intersections instead of one.  This is something I call the crosswalk zigzag. 

2.  Remove buttons to cross Brickell Avenue -  The streets have people walking on them, always.  There should be no need to push a button to cross the intersection, when there is almost always a pedestrian crossing.  The buttons are strange and dangerous -- many people never realize they are there. 

From my experience, a large percentage of people crossing Brickell Avenue never push the buttons when crossing the street.  While I understand the need for buttons in a suburban and autocentric area like Kendall and US1, I see no reason for them in a walkable, pedestrian oriented neighborhood -- especially when many people (especially tourists and visitors) do not use them.  It makes sense to to install and rely on safety measures that people do not use.

3. Highly Visible and Marked Crosswalks - Brickell Avenue needs visible crosswalks, not painted parallel lines that look no different than the stop line at a red light.  I see vehicles stopped over crosswalks almost every time I cross the street (I am not exaggerating), forcing pedestrians and bikers go around them.  Can anybody say dangerous?

4. Shorter Wait Times at Crosswalks - Crosswalk wait times at some intersection on Brickell Avenue can exceed 4 - 5 minutes.  On the other hand, wait times at urban centers such as New York, Boston, and San Francisco tend to run from 1 - 2 minutes.  

Considering the blazing sun and torrential downpours, this is unacceptable, and not a solution that is responsive to our local natural environment.  Perhaps the folks over in Tampa need to spend some time down here.  The Florida Department of Transportation needs to set realistic wait times if they expect people to wait at the light.  Safety measures should be designed to respond to the way people actually cross the street, not the other way around.

5. Remove Obstructions Along Narrow Sidewalks -  Get rid of the power panels, newspaper boxes and other obstructions along narrow 5' sidewalks (this is not a problem on the wider sidewalks). While there are not many of these cases, the few that do exist are too narrow for a wheelchair or bike to pass through.  One example of this is on the south west corner of SE 7th St and Brickell Avenue.

6. Fix Safety Issues on the East Side of SE 7th St and Brickell Avenue - Is the east side of SE 7th St and Brickell Avenue a sidewalk or a street?  Does anybody really know?  This intersection / sidewalk is a death trap.  There is no pedestrian or vehicular signage along the ridiculously long 100 foot, 6 lane driveway - larger than any street on Brickell.  (see gallery)

This is made dangerous by a traffic light that encourages cars to speed out of the garage, even though they are going over the sidewalk.  One can easily imagine how a pedestrian walking on the sidewalk while a reading a newspaper would have no clue that the sidewalk has all of a sudden become a street - there is no signage or physical intersection. Somebody is going to get hit by a car one day  - I know I almost have.

7. Add Street Furniture - Provide more trash cans, benches, and lighting along Brickell Avenue. 

8. Covered Bus Stops - It is hot and rains in Miami - need I say more?

9.  Add Much Needed Safety Signage - Brickell Avenue needs signage alerting automobiles as to the presence of pedestrians.  Driveways emptying into Brickell Ave (and anywhere in downtown for that manner) must have a sign alerting them to look out for pedestrians - on more than one occasion I almost became a statistic because of cars exiting dangerously fast from parking garages, without any regard to the sidewalk and pedestrians on it. 

In addition, signs saying "No Turn on Red when Pedestrians in Crosswalk" need to be replaced with "Yield to Pedestrians in Crosswalk".  Crosswalks and traffic lights directing traffic in the same direction usually turn green at the same time.  It makes no sense to instruct drivers to yield to pedestrians when the light is red, when the crosswalk is red as well. Rather, they should always yield to pedestrians, especially when the light is green -- that is when pedestrians have the green light as well.  Intersections need signage telling drivers that pedestrians have the right of way when they are on the crosswalk.  

This is a conflicting safety issue, and a mandatory change needed on Brickell Avenue.  Drivers must be made aware that one cannot just zoom through a right turn on Brickell Avenue, including when the light is green.

10. Enforcement - I have lived in Brickell for two years, and have never, ever, ever seen a  single cop or traffic officer enforcing common sense pedestrian safety laws.   This is arguably one of the biggest problems in downtown.  It is hard to expect drivers who drive around Miami, where people do not walk, to all of a sudden arrive in downtown and change their driving habits. 

Drivers can be seen day in and day out trying to cut in between pedestrians crossing the crosswalk, cars blocking crosswalks, and automobiles turning on red when pedestrians are trying to cross.  Miami Beach had many successful pedestrian safety programs to bring driver awareness, it is time the City of Miami did the same.  A little presence (and a few tickets) can go a long way.

11.  No Right Turn on Red - Pedestrians are always being forced off the sidewalk by automobiles trying to make a right on red. This is just not cool or safe.

12. Listen to Residents - I have not seen a single poll, survey, or questionnaire asking residents and business owners what they want for Brickell Avenue.  It is troubling to know that FDOT is not even interested in finding out what the people who live and use Brickell Avenue want for their neighborhood.  At the very least, should we not ask those who live and work in the area what they want from the major redo of Brickell Avenue? I guess the opinions of residents and business owners do not matter much in the big scheme of things.

13. DDA and City Involvement - Where is the City of Miami and the Downtown Development Authority (DDA) when it comes to making safer and more enjoyable streets? Where is the leadership - I am honestly sick of seeing master plans.  

I have seen a lot of parties and city guides coming out of the DDA, but few physical changes to the streets themselves.  Developers have spent a lot of money bringing the masses to downtown, but the city and the DDA have done little to safely accommodate the influx of new residents and visitors on downtown streets. 

While the DDA just spent a lot of money planting new (and useless) foliage on the Brickell median, I have not seen much else.  Not that it is any surprise, but the foliage looks almost the same as it did before, and parts of it have already been trampled by people crossing mid-block.  This leads me to the next point.

14. Add a Couple of Mid-Block Crosswalks - There are a couple of extremely long mega blocks on the west side of Brickell Avenue - which means people take the liberty to cross at the middle of the block.  This is after all Miami and the heat and rain are not going to convince anyone to walk 500-1000+  feet in the wrong direction just to get across the street. 

This is a fact, and while FDOT would like to live in a fantasy world, people are going to continue crossing in the middle of the block.  Don't believe me?  Just go check out the medians to see the half a dozen trails that have been carved by people crossing mid-block in just a few months.  One can also take a walk in the middle of the afternoon and see dozens of people crossing mid-block through the shrubs.  In the banking capital of the city, this just looks ridiculous - people hiking through a shrubs in suits is embarrassing.

A mid-block pedestrian crosswalk (with a button) between the mega blocks of SE 8th St and SE 10th St is needed as well as one between SE 10th St and SE 13th St. 

15. Drawbridge Should Not Prevent Crosswalks from Turning Green - Whenever the Brickell Avenue drawbridge is activated by a passing ship, all the crosswalks leading up to the bridge stop turning green.  Whether on is going up, down, or across Brickell Avenue, crosswalks are frozen red, 4 - 5 blocks down the street (for approx 15 minutes) until the drawbridge reopens. 

This occurs because traffic lights for automobiles are also frozen red to prevent them from piling up at intersections while the drawbridge is up.  While this is a sensible solution to the automobile problem, it makes no sense to prevent people from crossing the street as well.  This seems to be an engineering mistake - I can think of no logical reason why this should happen.

16.  Reduce the Speed on Brickell Avenue - As Transit Miami reported recently, a bus stop on Brickell Avenue got knocked out yet again for the fourth time in two years - luckily nobody was standing there at the time.  In a similar situation, all it takes is a large group of people standing around for a tragic disaster to happen.
This is just one of the many examples I can site as to why fast moving automobiles and high levels of pedestrian traffic do not mix.  Think of oil and water.  

Brickell Avenue is the primary crossing for residents and office workers in the area, and this is not conducive with fast automotive speeds.  If cars want to go fast, push them towards I-95 only 4 blocks away by introducing traffic calming measures on Brickell Avenue.  

The majority (not all) of new and exisiting residences in Brickell are on the east side of Brickell Avenue while most of the commercial, retail, public transit, and entertainment in the area is on the west side of the street.  The people walking in the area have no other option, Brickell Avenue dissects the area in half. 

17. Change Perceptions - Brickell Avenue should not be a passing street to get somewhere, but rather a destination.  We should treat Brickell Avenue as a place to be seen, a place where people want to spend time.  If we really expect tourists to continue coming to Brickell, then we need to provide the proper environment.  Brickell Avenue should not be a game of Frogger, we have video games for that. 

Overall, it is important to understand that the conditions on Brickell Avenue are only going to get worse, not better.  More residents, more office workers, and more tourists will be descending in the area in the coming years.  Let us design a safe, enjoyable, and beautiful people oriented Brickell Avenue we can all be proud of.