Yahoo Movies Rickenbacker bike plan: more tickets, lower speeds, temporary cones. And more to come
Ramped-up protection measures for cyclists on the Rickenbacker Causeway started this weekend and will continue for weeks as Miami-Dade County prepares for more permanent steps on the busy recreational and driving route connecting Key Biscayne with Miami.
County police handed out more than 300 citations and warnings over the weekend, an agency spokesperson said Monday, while enforcing slower speed limits as part of a safety plan ordered by Mayor Daniella Levine Cava after the May 15 deaths of two cyclists struck by a Jeep.
READ MORE: Barriers for bike lanes coming to Rickenbacker Causeway after cyclist deaths, mayor says
Other steps included plastic cones blocking off some areas where cars and bike lanes overlap, to alert drivers where it’s dangerous or illegal to turn. Speed limit signs marking the prior 45 mph cap were removed, replaced with 40 mph signs from the toll plaza east to the William Powell Bridge, then 35 mph signs to the Bear Cut Bridge.
“We wanted to put some measures out there to encourage people to drive more safely and have people act with more vigilance,” said Jimmy Morales, Miami-Dade’s chief operating officer under Levine Cava.
He said the administration plans to unveil a more permanent plan for the Rickenbacker in the next two weeks, which will include vertical barriers in some places to create physical separation between auto traffic and green-painted bike lanes.
Morales said the administration will solicit input from the community on the proposed changes, then have them implemented by mid-summer.
On Rickenbacker Causeway, 226 citations in one weekend
Det. Chris Thomas, spokesperson for the Miami-Dade Police Department, said officers issued 226 citations on the Rickenbacker over the weekend. Six of those went to cyclists, with the rest to automobile drivers. There were another 83 warnings to vehicle drivers and 24 warnings to cyclists.
Thomas said prior weekend statistics weren’t immediately available, but that the weekend police presence involved “significantly more officers working with the specific goal to educate and enforce traffic laws.”
Mike Davey, Key Biscayne’s mayor, questioned why Miami-Dade would lower the speed limit without giving regular drivers of the route a heads up on the change. “I would have liked to have seen a little notice,” he said.
‘They have to do enforcement against the pelotons’
Davey said the village supports changes for bike safety, but wants to see police citing bikers for law breaking, too. “If they do enforcement, they have to do enforcement against the pelotons,” he said, referring to packs of high-speed cyclists.
He said he wants vertical barriers for bike lanes, rather than a permanent lowering of the legal speeds on the causeway. “Our concerns are with a long-term lowering of the speed limits,” he said. “It doesn’t address the main issue. The main issue is separation.”
