Pedestrian-only sand path may remedy beachwalk dangers

Calling Miami Beach “a victim of its own success” with dangerously heavy pedestrian and cyclist use of its beachwalk, city officials are targeting a new pedestrian-only path on hard-packed sand that might take years to open.

Commissioners at their most recent meeting envisioned such a path as a remedy for growing bicycle and illegal scooter use on a beachwalk filled with pedestrians. The idea won favorable recommendations from the city’s Public Safety and Neighborhood Quality of Life Committee.

In a December meeting, the idea from Mayor Steven Meiner was sent to the committee, which on Feb. 14 moved it “with a favorable recommendation to the commission to pursue creating a compacted sand path east of the dunes for pedestrians (as opposed to bicyclists) which would include permitting and approvals through the State Coastal Construction Line Program.”

The path is to minimize interaction between pedestrians and bicyclists.

The mayor has initiated something great here, said Commissioner Alex J. Fernandez. “Clearly one of our greatest successes is our beachwalk, and it’s such a great success that it’s been a victim of its own success, and obviously overcrowded over capacity. I think certainly … pursuing this hard-pack idea that you’ve brought forward to provide more safe facilities for pedestrians, it only makes sense.”

At times motorized scooters zip down the beachwalk, said Mayor Meiner, which is illegal and the city’s police and park rangers are addressing.

“You have bicycles that are permitted and because of state funding that we got, we can’t preclude that, but some of the bicycles do go quite quickly and there have been, unfortunately, injuries,” he said. “This has become a victim of its own success.”

The initial idea was different.

“I had actually done it where the bicycles would go there,” said Mayor Meiner, “but then working with the community, the Mid-Beach Neighborhood Association, which has been extremely supportive of this item, it did make more sense to flip this and have the pedestrians where I think the path will continue to be bike pedestrians, but this would be another alternative for pedestrians to be in a lane where no bicycles would be coming.”

Commissioner Tanya Bhatt expressed support and addressed future financial discussions related to the topic with her “colleagues on the Finance Committee, I know it’s yet another thing that we’re going to have to figure out how to afford, but I really believe that things that are worth doing don’t come easily sometimes and it will be a great day for the city when we celebrate the ribbon cutting for this.”

Commissioner Kristen Rosen Gonzalez said she loved the idea but raised questions.

“I had a few questions,” Ms. Rosen Gonzalez said: “How long will it take? Once we start the regulatory process, how long do you anticipate?”

Amy Knowles, chief resilience officer, explained the timeline.

“Because this is something that is very unique, it’s obviously a lot of challenges, and we provided the state statute. We’re going to have to take some time to come up with a creative approach to get the state to a ‘yes’, because right now, there are a lot of barriers here.”

“We would have to go through the submittal process, It depends on their staffing,” she said. “Right now, it can take a few months even to get an approval for a special event permit; so we can report on that as it gets closer. But again, the beachwalk itself did take quite a long time.”

The beachwalk took six years, maybe eight, said Commissioner Rosen Gonzalez. “It was a long time and coming, but I hope that because we’re not building, we’re just compacting sand, that it might not take as long. I think this was just a really brilliant decision and it solves a problem. I don’t know about you guys, but I get the phone calls all the time about how dangerous it is and we can’t enforce it and it’s very frustrating…. It’s a great idea.”