4 August 10-16, 2023 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com New Times | music | cafe | culture | Night+Day | news | letters | coNteNts | MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2008 miaminewtimes.com MIAMI NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | FILM | ART | STAGE | NIGHT+DAY | METRO | RIPTIDE | LETTERS | CONTENTS | ▼ ITEM CATEGORY LET THE PEOPLE WALK! CITYNERD: MIAMI IS “WALKABLE URBANISM FOR THE RICH.” BY NAOMI FEINSTEIN R ay Delahanty, an urban planning and transportation expert, has spent the last two years trekking across the U.S. and reporting on cities’ public transportation sys- tems for weekly videos on his popular CityNerd YouTube channel. At the invitation of the nonprofit Transit Alliance, Delahanty recently paid a visit to South Florida for his segment “Miami: Ultra- Livable Paradise or Car-Dependent Night- mare” — in which he scoped out our humble cityscape and put his figurative magnifying glass on the Metrorail and the local pedes- trian infrastructure (or lack thereof). How did we fare? While Delahanty was “pleasantly sur- prised” by the county’s Metrorail — saying it was a good skeleton to build more public transportation — he spent much of his mono- logue skewering Miami-Dade’s transit and street designs. For Delahanty, one thing became clear: “Miami is walkable urbanism for the rich and car dependency for everyone else.” In higher-income neighborhoods, such as Miami Beach, Coral Gables, and Coconut Grove, Delahanty noted that there were am- ple pedestrianized zones and lush tree cano- pies for shade while lower-income areas and historically Black communities like Liberty City and Overtown were urban heat islands, transit deserts, and home to some of the county’s most unsafe intersections. The observations may not be news to long- time locals, but the disparity was enough to jar Delahanty, an outsider with infrastructure expertise and a pair of fresh eyes, as it was his first visit to Miami. “It did feel like there’s a stark contrast,” Delahanty tells New Times. At times, Delahanty says he had a nagging fear of death while trying to cross wide, busy Miami-Dade roads, some of which had bro- ken crosswalk signals. His trek along South Dixie Highway was particularly vexing. “When I would hit the button waiting, there would clearly be a time when the walk signal was supposed to come up, and it just didn’t,” he says. “That’s a huge problem be- cause it leaves the pedestrian in the position of trying to guess whether it’s safe to cross the street or not.” It wasn’t all gripes and sour grapes in CityNerd’s infrastructure assessment. Delahanty says he thought the Metrorail service was “pretty good,” and that he appre- ciated its air-conditioned cabins, especially during the punishing summer heat. “Miami’s probably a little smaller than Dal- las and Houston, and it is way beyond those cit- ies in terms of transit,” Delahanty tells New Times. “It’s in the middle of the pack in a way, but it really does have the kind of spine of metro rail service that you would hope the region is able to build upon and leverage with bus service and the Metromover that connects to it.” He was disappointed, however, that the system does not reach farther out of Miami’s urban center. Since the 1980s, the county has failed to fulfill its promise to expand the Me- trorail to more northern neighborhoods. The accessibility surrounding Metrorail stations is, to put it lightly, less than intuitive, in CityNerd’s view. He noticed that at some Metrorail station entrances, riders have to traverse busy Dixie Highway crossings or go up and down more than one flight of stairs. He called the Douglas Road station a “chutes and ladders situation” in his video. Delahanty also was shocked that a rail con- nection to Miami Beach still has not been built. Transit Alliance Miami, the nonprofit that invited Delahanty, “advocates for walkable streets, bikeable neighborhoods, and better public transit in Miami-Dade.” The group asked him to drop into the Magic City at the height of our historic heat wave to analyze Miami’s public transit system following the release of the Transit Alliance’s 2023 Mobil- ity Scorecard. The report highlights the per- formance of county and municipal mobility options in addition to safety issues for pedes- trians and cyclists. “There are statistics out there about how younger people are driving less, how people, especially younger people, want more walk- able communities,” Transit Alliance policy manager Mark Merwitzer tells New Times. “We wanted to share this message with them, and he’s a great person to do that.” Delahanty says one main takeaway from his visit was that the Florida Department of Transportation is heavily investing in the state highway system while the rail system and other modes of public transportation are, by comparison, left in the dust. Big-ticket road construction projects, namely the $840 million Signature Bridge project downtown, were clearly the priority, as CityNerd saw it. “If you keep building freeways and rein- forcing that idea that you need to get a car to go everywhere, that’s what you’re gonna get. It’s kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy,” Delah- anty tells New Times. “There needs to be some sort of balance.” | RIPTIDE | GET MORE NEWS & COMMENTARY AT MIAMINEWTIMES.COM/NEWS Construction workers build the “Signature Bridge” in downtown Miami. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images ▼ ITEM CATEGORY RISING RECORDS HOW MANY HEAT RECORDS DID MIAMI MELT IN JULY? BY JESSE FRAGA M iami just made it through its hottest July on record. The past few weeks brought a blis- tering heat, coupled with unrelenting humidity, that frazzled even the most sun-baked, alligator- skinned Floridians among us. Miami set more daily heat records last month than any other July — the highest daily temperature for seven dates and highest heat index for 19 dates, according to University of Miami data stretching back to 1948. The steamy weather lingered in place for weeks in part because of high ocean tempera- tures, which robbed residents of the sea-breeze cooling effect that usually alleviates the South Florida heat, meteorologist Sammy Hadi told New Times at the height of the heat wave. On July 16, the National Weather Service is- sued its first-ever “excessive heat warning for South Florida,” triggered by a forecast that the heat index would reach 110 degrees for more than two hours. (The advisory was issued under a new standard that lowered the threshold for a warning from a heat index of 113 degrees to 110 degrees.) Tens of thousands of Miami metro residents who work in agriculture, construction, and outdoor service industries bore the brunt of the heat wave. There were at least two documented heat-re- lated deaths among South Florida agricultural workers this year, which prompted protests and outcry from worker advocacy groups. The Miami- Dade County Commission passed a first reading of a proposal that, if it receives final approval, would give construction and agriculture workers the right to a ten-minute shaded break every two hours on hot days, among other safeguards. The South Florida heat came amid the globe’s hottest month on record, according to European climate data. The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) said last week that in addition to unprecedented sustained surface temperatures, one date last month, July 6, marked the hottest day ever re- corded in terms of average global temperature. On July 28, Miami ended its 46-day streak of heat indices above 100 degrees. “This blew past the previous record of 32 consecutive days… Incredible,” meteorologist Brian McNoldy tweeted, noting the previous re- cord in August and September 2020. But Magic City managed to slip in one final scorcher, logging a 107-degree heat index on July 31, the high- est ever recorded for that date. Humans weren’t the only ones feeling the burn in July. Florida’s coral reefs and marine life face un- precedented mortality and stress due to a climb in ocean temperatures. According to NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch, most reefs in the Keys are currently classified under heat stress Level 2, the highest possible stress level, in which “severe coral bleaching and significant coral death (mortality is likely),” the site states. (This isn’t a new phenomenon. Last year, a NOAA study found that 70 percent of studied sites in the Florida Reef were in an erosional state due to bleaching, habitat loss, and disease.) Sea surface temperatures reached 101 degrees in the final days of the month between the penin- sula and the Keys — hotter than the air outside. “Day after day, the record-smashing anoma- lies in the atmosphere and ocean around the world this year are just jaw-dropping,” McNoldy tweeted. “Unlike anything we’ve seen.” While the heat streak retreated in the first week of August, South Florida residents are not getting the perfect beach day just yet: Forecasts continue to call for isolated showers throughout the week. The rain and accompanying cloud cover might cool things intermittently, though several days stretching from early to mid-August are forecast to have daily high temperatures in the low 90s. [email protected] FLORIDA’S CORAL REEFS AND MARINE LIFE FACE UNPRECEDENTED MORTALITY AND STRESS.
