I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired and I decided to do something about it. I’ve written before about cycling on the Rickenbacker Causeway which unites mainland Miami to the Village of Key Biscayne where I live. This stretch of road feels like a highway but it is not. Lanes are wide and there are no stop lights except for two along its approximate six miles. Although the speed limit is 45mph, cars zoom by; “Miami Drivers” we say, are crazy. The causeway boasts beautiful views of the Bay of Biscayne, and where it finishes, past the Village of Key Biscayne, lies yet another beauty, the Bill Baggs State Park with its towering lighthouse. The causeway is also peppered with attractions: the Miami Seaquarium, Crandon Golf Course, a Tennis Center (home to the Sony Ericsson), a high school, UM’s Rosenstiel School of Marine Science, and award winning beaches to boot. With all this, it’s no wonder traffic flow is heavy on the causeway. But it is also one of Miami’s favorite cycling stretches and the scene of many car/bike scrapes including two fatalities in the last three years.
The latest fatality was Aaron Cohen, father to two young children like my own. His death moved me very much and I stopped cycling all together for a while as you can read here. But I came back to cycling because in truth, I love it and without it, I cannot really do an IronMan. It helped that someone decided to sponsor me and give me a new bike, (that story is here) but I did not take this decision lightly and you can read about that process here.
I am a very defensive and safe cyclist. I ride seventy miles going around and around a three mile loop because that is where I feel the safest. But you know what? I am tired of being scared. I did contact Safe Street Miami as I mentioned in my post from way back when, and I learned it is a project by a group called The Green Mobility Network and that is how I met Hank, a like minded fellow resident of Key Biscayne.
We wanted to take some sort of action to make the causeway safer but didn’t know exactly what or how to organize ourselves until last week. An article came out in the Islander News, our local newspaper, talking about a proposition the Village of Key Biscayne sent to Miami Dade County (owners of the causeway) regarding safety on the causeway. In it, the Village calls for a physical barrier between the bike lane and the road, and it includes a potential toll for bikes in order to pay for it.
Being a resident of Key Biscayne, I was nudged by fellow teammates to mobilize the Key Biscayne cycling community. The fear is that a physical barrier such as a concrete wall on an already tight bike lane would make it even less safe for bicyclists of all types. It would make passing slower bike traffic dangerous and would also make maintenance of the bike lane an issue as debris can accumulate making it another safety concern. There is such animosity between Key Biscayne residents and Miami cyclists that distrust is the first sentiment, and fear of having a bad solution shoved down their throats was the concern.
I contacted Hank about the proposition and the idea of getting a group of Key Biscayne cyclists together to see if we could find out more information, influence the decision making process, and educate everyone on safety as here neither the cars nor the bikes have a clean transit record. My main area of interest is by far the latter. Before I knew it, there I was at Starbucks on a Saturday at 8:30am waiting for Hank and Key Biscayne Mayor Frank Caplan.
I wasn’t sure what to expect. I have dabbled in a slew of careers in my past. I’ve been an investment banker, a techie, an international marketing manager and a social entrepreneur before being a preschool teacher, but I have never talked to a Mayor. I don’t even feel like I know much about the issue, its history, the details of how things get funded what departments are involved where, what has been proposed and backfired before. I felt like I was voluntarily walking into a fire. I called out for some information and got myself a basic education on the subject.
Both the Mayor and Hank arrived almost simultaneously and both on their bikes (brownie point), and we spent the next hour talking about causeway safety. Hank will be writing the details that most of the cyclists in Miami are interested in on The Green Mobility Network Blog. But there were several things that were enlightening about Mayor Caplan.
He began by telling us that he understood we live in a beautiful island that many people want to, and have the right to, enjoy. Residents who choose to live here understand that there is only one-way in and out: the causeway. This makes residents a key (irresistibly bad pun) stakeholder in these discussions. Though what set the tone for the meeting, paraphrasing Mayor Caplan, was this: everyone has equal rights to the causeway and should be able to enjoy it safely – cars, bikes and pedestrians. This is a basic point of departure as this attitude, amazingly, is not what we commonly hear from local Key Biscayne residents.
Residents tend to have an antagonistic attitude towards cyclists, in a large part out of fear of causing an accident as there are some reckless cycling groups out there. But these are 10% of all cyclists, in the same way that 10% of drivers are bad drivers who speed or break the law. I digress ….
Hearing this as a starting point put me at ease in that we were not speaking to a wall. The Mayor gave me the impression of a reasonable man not an angry resident who wants cyclists to go find somewhere else to ride. That, I kid you not, I have heard many times – “go find somewhere else to ride this is my home.” Just in case, this is my home as well.
Bear Cut Bridge – scene of another fatalityWe spoke about different solutions, what has been proposed which is not a concrete wall, what issues arise on getting anything done. The Mayor also specifically said he was not in favor of a toll for cyclists. Portion of the already existing $1.50 toll is designated to cover bike lane expenses. This is not a priority for the mayor or the council in general.
The meeting was informal and warm. It showed me there is more than goodwill but a real intention of implementing significant change so that everyone can be safe on the causeway. And this change is not in the distant future but it is near term. The intention of the proposition was mostly to stir the pot and get the conversation going. I am not a politician, nor am I an experienced activist, but my pot was stirred.
For my part, I am inviting residents of Key Biscayne who also cycle for a meeting this Saturday, September 22 at 3:00pm. If you are BOTH a resident and a CYCLIST please contact me for details. I am as tired as any triathlete mami is out there with the demands on our time, but I am no longer a passive victim of what other people are doing. I took a stand and hope to do my part to make the causeway safer for all to enjoy.
