Unpopular bike lanes stir rally, may be halted by Coral Gables mayor Tuesday

For the second time, it looks like bike lanes are going to be nixed in Coral Gables.

Mayor Raul Valdes-Fauli has a resolution on the agenda for Tuesday’s meeting “directing the City Manager and City Staff to cease further consideration of bicycle lanes on Alhambra Circle as part of the Alhambra Circle Complete Streets Project.”

This is after a group of residents complained loudly about the project, a 2.3 mile bike lane connecting parts of Northwest Gables with the University of Miami from Coral Way to San Amaro Drive. It was part of an original four miles of dedicated cycling lanes but the Riviera Drive segment was nixed last year after those homeowners complained.

Alhambra Circle residents want the same consideration. They say their streets are complete already. They don’t want to lose the green space swale and have narrower streets so the city can expand sidewalks and add a bike lane along a twisty, winding route that has already had its share of accidents.

And the trees! The plan could possibly mean the uprooting of dozens of old, majestic trees, perhaps close to 100. And homeowners say preserving the canopy is more important than providing new bike paths.

“We moved to the Gables because it was peaceful and green. When you look at Google maps, its like an oasis in Miami-Dade,” said Maria Vazquez.

In 2014, the city leadership at the time adopted The City of Coral Gables’ Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan, which “proposes more than 27 miles of new or improved bikeways, sidewalks and crosswalks. It recommends a comprehensive expansion of bike infrastructure that will appeal to users of all ages and abilities. Currently, bikers have to share most residential streets with vehicular motorists, as in the city photo here to the right. There is an existing bike lane — almost perfectly parallel to the proposed Alhambra bicycle lanes — on Red Road. But city staffers and bike enthusiasts say 57th Avenue is a busier road, not as safe as an interior road would be.

“As people increasingly choose to use a bicycle as a mode of transportation for errands, work commutes or recreation, vehicular traffic and emissions are reduced, contributing to a more livable Coral Gables,” it says on the city’s website, which is clearly acting like a cheerleader for the project. “Can you imagine commuting to work while having fun and de-stressing? Can you imagine riding a bike in a safe, protected bike lane with your family without sitting in traffic? Coral Gables is working to make this mobility option a reality for all ages and abilities. ”

Not if Mabel Galoppi can help it.

“I have solar panels. I recycle,” she said. “I just want Coral Gables to stay green.”

Galoppi, who is now helping her neighbors on Alhambra, collected more than 110 signatures against the project from her neighbors on Riviera Drive, where she has lived for 50 years, and the project was abandoned. It wasn’t difficult. Most of her neighbors are not in favor. Not by a long shot.

“I know bike riders,” said Lucy Alas, who has lived on Alhambra since 1967. “They don’t use bicycle lanes. And even less on something as narrow as Alhambra. It’s suicide,” Alas said, adding that there have been more than a dozen accidents there in the last year. Other women close by concurred and everyone remembered the SUV that flipped over.

“Does a child have to die,” one woman asked.

Yamila Abay says that the demographics of the Gables and Alhambra Circle don’t support a bike lane. “We’re not young. We don’t bike. We don’t skate.”

Alas chimed in: “Because 30-year-olds can’t afford million dollar homes.”

Desiree Caskill has another argument: “This is the only city that concentrates on historic preservation and you are stripping away the beautiful historic street.”

Ladra was told there were some bike lane proponents at the meeting, but by the time she arrived, they had left. There were not many and they are not, apparently, as adamant about the issue as the opposition, who stayed til the bitter end.

Alhambra homeowners are also upset about the process, which they say is staff driven and has left them pretty much out of any decision making. The city had its first town hall meeting in September, after the city got a nearly $600,000 grant in 2015 from the state to make the bike lanes a realitY. And many residents were upset that so much had already been planned without their input. Then, in October, Assistant Public Works Director Jessica Keller took some residents on a walking tour to let them visualize the project and its impacts.

Saturday was the third “public” meeting. But it seemed more like a rally, with signs and stickers against the plan and in favor of the status quo. Several residents said they would wear white and the same green stickers at Tuesday’s meeting.

Keller (in the braids) and Assistant City Manager Ed Santamaria — armed with large poster boards with differing versions of what everyone calls “Jessica’s baby” — did their best to convince the residents that the project would enhance their neighborhoods. But residents weren’t having it. One woman asked Santamaria if he was stupid because he said the bike lanes slowed traffic down by 4%, causing everyone to raise their voices a little bit.

Earlier, the meeting almost didn’t happen. City staff were met with cheers of “We don’t want it. We don’t want it,” and Santamaria threatened to shut the meeting down. But he immediately came back and presented the city’s drawings (some of which, he admitted, were not correct as to scale of the streets).

A video of this and other clips can be seen on the Gables Insider website. The city also took video of the meeting and when that is on the website, Political Cortadito will link to it also.

“Why did they not come to the community to ask for a letter of support,” asked activist Maria Cruz. “Because they knew the answer. And this is what the problem is: The city employees know more than we do. They know what’s best for us. And we have to put a stop to them.”

Pinero-Vazquez reminded the crowd that the city and staff worked for the residents. She also said that Keller falsified information on the grant application to get the $600K, a serious allegation that could cost the city penalties and future grants.

“In that grant, it specifically says that there was community outreach and community support for bike lanes. None of us had asked for bike lanes,” Piñero Vazquez said, adding that Keller emailed two members of the Bike Walk committee to get it.

“She said, ‘Here are the two thing we need as evidence of support,'” Piñero-Vazquez said. The members didn’t even take it to the full committee meeting, she added. They simply “cut and paste” the wording that Keller needed and mailed it back to her on the spot. “And that was submitted to the federal government. That was a submission based on a false statement.”

Labra is in the process of getting those emails and public documents to confirm if that happened. Because if it did, then the reason the city staff is railroading is to cover up that little doozy.

In the meantime, the public works staff has suggested a poll — a little late and a little long. Because it is not just for the 174 homeowners along Alhambra Circle that this would affect. It is for the residents of the side streets also. All 857 of them.

“The whole intention of doing that is to dilute the voice of the people who are affected,” said a gentleman in a straw boater hat who said the staff was “rogue.”

“They have their own agenda and the special interests are pushing this agenda based on misinformation,” he told Ladra, preferring not to give his name. “They want to put an eight foot wide strip of cement in front of every house in Alhambra, eliminating trees and the canopy.”

“My agenda is doing my job,” Santamaria told Ladra, defending the wider net cast for the poll. “It’s only fair that the elected officials get the whole picture.”

It seems obvious to Ladra that city staff will ask Valdes-Fauli not to make a decision until those poll results are back.

Many of these residents said they would also be at the meeting, to air their concerns, if the mayor lets them. He has a penchant for shutting people up and cutting them off. But the mayor is the one that put this item on the agenda, for a time certain discussion at 10 a.m. at City Hall, 405 Biltmore Way.

Commissioner Vince Lago told Ladra Sunday that he hopes the grant monies can be used at least to implement some of the sidewalks, which he says are needed on some streets. He said some of the protests or criticisms are premature because there are many options and nothing yet brought forward.

“The project scope has not been defined yet. Not 100 percent,” Lago said.

But he is unwilling to remove trees. That’s a dealbreaker, he said.

“We are a 35-year Tree City USA. We are defined by our tree canopy,” Lago said. “I am not going to cut down a 100- or 150-year old tree for a sidewalk or a bicycle lane.”

Bicycle lanes, Coral Gables politics, Raul Vales-Fauli

Unpopular bike lanes stir rally, may be halted by Coral Gables mayor Tuesday added by Ladra on January 27, 2020
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