Virginia Key as a great civic space

On the road, in the buildings, and through the landscape, Virginia Key is a great civic space that has the potential to build community. 


But only if the community is not shut out.  

A  Virginia Key of great civic spaces is a place where public areas are protected - public shorelines among them.   It's still possible on an island that is publicly owned, filled with wild and open spaces,  and possessing an extraordinary public shoreline that is raw but beautiful in its simplicity.  

Virginia Key is also a place filled with  buildings of civic significance:  the historic Miami Marine Stadium, the Miami  Seaquarium, the science complex (University of Miami’s Rosensteil School and the various NOAA buildings), and the segregation-era buildings  of the Historic Virginia Key Beach. 

And there’s the road in -- the Rickenbacker Causeway -- designed as public parkway by landscape architect William Lyman Phillips in the 1940‘s. 

Restoring these civic buildings and spaces would go a long way to restoring a sense of place in a city that is apparently short of civic “centeredness” by design.  

“In this city, we don’t have a lot of public infrastructure,” architect Allan Shulman said Tuesday at a presentation on Miami Architecture, a new guidebook he co-authored with Randall Robinson, a landscape architect and James Donnelly, a historian. 

The book not only documents buildings of architectural significance but also places them in context.

Robinson, writing on the city’s history, describes how Miami sprouted into existence like a Wild West “gold rush” town, “with little regard for the creation of civic spaces.”

That can be remedied by making Virginia Key the new civic center, a place everyone feels they have a stake in protecting and preserving because it is kept in public hands, not parceled off to private development.

Photo: courtesy of University of Miami archives

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Also, join on Facebook: Friends of Virginia Key

Public Park Should Open First at Marine Stadium site

The recently approved Virginia Key Master Plan envisions a restored and reopened Miami Marine Stadium but how long will it take to bring back the historic structure into operation and the public back to the waterfront?

Shuttered in 1992 after Hurricane Andrew’s winds whipped through the Miami Marine Stadium, the venerable stadium has sat unused, neglected and vandalized behind a sagging chain-linked fence ever since.

But that wasn’t the first time it closed.

In 1967 - a scant four years after its opening -- a Miami Herald photo showed the stadium behind a chain-linked fence with a “No Trespassing” sign. Apparently the place wasn’t making enough money from boat races alone to keep it open.

Under the headline, “An Insolent Sign,” the Herald lamented the public being shut out of valuable waterfront land:

The public has come to forgive the feasibility reports and the enthusiasm that generated the spending of $2 million for a stadium that was supposed to be filled each weekend with 6,566 screaming admirers of roaring motorboats...But it is impossible to forgive the hand-wringing at City Hall over past mistakes and the failure to allow the public to use this stretch of bayfront. .. Everywhere else along Rickenbacker Causeawy, the people of Miami crowd fender to fender and blanket to blanket to enjoy the waterfront. But not within the shadows of the moldering white elephant that is the Marine Stadium. There is nothing the public can do about the Marine Stadium being a profitless place, but there should be an effective demand to end the insult of that fence and locked gates.

A preliminary engineering study of the Miami Marine Stadium released earlier this year by Friends of the Miami Marine Stadium showed the concrete restoration costs to be between $5.5 - $8.5 million, exclusive of renovation costs for new seats, bathrooms, etc... Still unknown is the condition and costs of renovating the underwater concrete pilings that prop up the nearly 50-year-old structure.

Despite good intentions and a solid commitment from City Hall, it could take some time to finish the engineering studies, raise funds and complete the renovations.

In the meantime, the public is, once again, being shut out of its beautiful waterfront land.

Why not bring down some of those ugly chain-linked fences, plant some sod, install park benches and call the whole place a park?

The need for waterfront parks is just as great - if not greater - today as it was in 1967. Bring it on.


Resources: http://www.marinestadium.org/

Pedestrians Using Rickenbacker Can Benefit from Overpass, New Multi-use paths

The Rickenbacker’s transformation from causeway to Park-way (that happens to have a road through the middle of it) continues with $4.5 million in proposed improvements that include everything from widened bike lanes to reduced speed limits and a pedestrian overpass.

Some proposals unveiled at a recent town hall meeting are merely studies - like reducing speed limits. Others are slated to happen within the next year - like a new signalized crossing and turnaround at Hobie Island (Windsurfer Beach).

“This will be a multi-year effort,” Miami-Dade County Commissioner Carlos Gimenez told the crowd of 150 people at the Coral Gables Youth Center July 1.

The money comes from 25 cents of every toll collected at the Rickenbacker toll booths, which have been in place (and now are up to $1.50 for cars) since the roadway opened in 1947. The Miami-Dade County Commission is scheduled to vote on the measure July 20, 2010.

Pedestrians and slower-moving wheeled traffic - including moms with strollers - could be big winners with the construction of a new “multi-use” path along the North Side of the Rickenbacker from Bear Cut Bridge to the William Power Bridge (the tall one).

Instead of cycling or jogging alongside fast-moving vehicular traffic, users would enjoy a path protected by barriers, possibly bollards (waist-high telephone poles) set among a landscaped swale.

That project is scheduled for Fiscal Year 2013-2014 but really should be moved up the list, given the demand and need for safer alternatives.

Another pedestrian amenity would be a foot bridge over the Rickenbacker. This would open up a safe (and non-motorized) way for beachgoers enjoying the refurbished public park on the south side of Hobie Beach to visit existing restaurants and hopefully, other public amenities on Virginia Key built either by the City of Miami, Miami-Dade County or even, state or national park systems.

The "Dade County Aquarium and Marine Laboratory" on Virginia Key

Early planning for an Aquarium on Virginia Key envisioned a “civic institution of educational value, providing unique entertainment at a moderate admittance fee controlled by the County.”

In what now seems a rather quaint practice, the Board of County Commissioners wrote up a sales sheet of sorts to convince taxpayers to approve the issuance of $2 million in bonds to pay for the project.

Entitled, “Facts of Importance to All Property Owners” the County put it this way: “These projects are not for us. They are for you, your family and friends, the visitors who spend millions of dollars here, and for the general welfare and progress of our commmunity.”

Accordingly, the “Dade County Aquarium and Marine Laboratory” project which would be built on 40 acres of County-owned land on Virginia Key would include:

a marine biology laboratory operated in cooperation with the United States government. In addition to hundreds of varied kinds of fish and ocean life in display tanks, it would have a museum of wild life, laboratory equipment for the benefit of the public, batteries of microscopes to view minute marine life, equipment for showing scientific motion pictures and rooms for public lectures.

To convince taxpayers of the fiscal soundness of the project, they projected $175,000 annual revenue, which would be used to pay off the bonds. Not only that, but as the marine center provided an inducement to motorists to cross the newly constructed (1947) Rickenbacker Causeway, the increased toll revenues would speed up payment of the causeway to the day when the toll would be removed altogether.

Of course, the project’s appeal to tourists was touted as another plus, given that “(T)ourists are the main support of this area.”

But perhaps the greatest sales pitch was this: “As a publicly-owned institution, proper controls over its policies, prices and operation can be excercised to keep the aquarium as a recreation center for all the people.”

Town Hall Meeting on Rickenbacker Causeway

Always a popular scenic drive for motorists (once dubbed the famed “rainbow trail to contentment”) the Rickenbacker Causeway is now equally revered by bicyclists and pedestrians who have transformed it into a linear park.

Unfortunately, its design and speed limits are more in line with a speedway than park way, with the resulting accidents and roadside tragedies.

Miami-Dade County Commissioner Carlos A. Gimenez and Coral Gables Commissioner Ralph Cabrera say they want to change that.

They’re looking for ideas from the public on how to improve public safety on the Rickenbacker.*

There will be a a town hall meeting beginning at 6:30 p.m., Thursday, July 1, at the Coral Gables Youth Center, 400 Anastasia Avenue, Coral Gables to hear public concerns and ideas.

“The Rickenbacker Causeway is a very popular area for both cyclists and pedestrians, so Miami-Dade and Coral Gables officials must do all they can to protect them,” Gimenez said.

Safety for those outside cars has always been an issue along the Rickenbacker. In the early days, it was fishermen who were most at risk.

A March 1960 news article reported that since the causeway opened in 1947, at least 10 persons were killed and more than 120 injured in car accidents involving fishermen stepping back onto the roadway or crossing the bridges.

The solution: build “catwalks” - more than 2,800 linear feet of protected fishing space - along the bridges where folks could fish to their heart’s content.” That’s enough room for 1,000 fisherman, the article stated.

Apparently, slowing down traffic or narrowing the lanes - two options recently suggested to improve safety for bicyclists - would have been considered heresy in 1960. The article went on to assure “motorists” their rides would not be hampered:

As a motorist, you gain two benefits from the catwalks....Instead of creeping at 20 miles an hour over the bridges, you may now cross the entire length of the causeway at speeds up to 40 miles an hour.

If only.

As anyone who has driven the Rickenbacker knows, the actual speed of cars is in excess of 60 mph.

No wonder they eventually outlawed fishing alongside the bridges altogether.


* If you can't attend the Town Hall meeting and still want to pass on ideas for making the Rickenbacker Causeway safer for pedestrians and bicyclists, contact:

Coral Gables Commissioner Ralph Cabrera: rcabrera@coralgables.com; (305) 569-1817
Miami-Dade Commissioner Carlos Gimenez: http://www.miamidade.gov/district07/home.asp; (305) 375-5680

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Rickenbacker as parkway

As the debate rages on about making the Rickenbacker Causeway safer for bicyclists and pedestrians who use the road as a linear park, it’s interesting to note that the original designer, landscape architect William Lyman Phillips designed the Rickenbacker as if it were part of the park system and not merely as a speedy go-through to Key Biscayne.

Phillips also designed the area’s great parks, Virginia Key and Crandon Park, and both the roadway and the parks were part of a grand plan to bring the splendor of tropics to the public.

The 1947 opening day brochure for the area, talked of an “invitation to a new land” and described it this way:

Replacing the old rainbow trail to contentment, the broad Rickenbacker Causeway now leads to new horizons, just around the corner from Miami’s towering mainland. The new span across Biscayne Bay to Virginia Key, thence to Key Biscayne - and Crandon Park - Dade County’s and the nation’s newest tropic pleasure island.”

A closer look at Phillips design for the Rickenbacker shows a design for a pedestrian parkway called “Paseo de las Americas,” tree-lined with public plazas at intervals, very much about creating pleasant public spaces and amenities.

That idea was carried throughout the four-mile scenic road, recalls Phillips biographer Faith Reyner Jackson in her book, Pioneer of Tropical Landscape Architecture, with Phillips' inclusion of “inviting stopping places for fishing, bathing or launching boats.”

Photo Friday: Riding the Rickenbacker

Walking or riding the Rickenbacker is a favorite for hundreds of folks each day. But the old adage there’s safety in numbers doesn’t apply here. The blog, Transit Miami, recently posted some ideas for transforming the roadway into a safer and more beautiful corridor, more in line with the linear park it is.

Some of the ideas proposed include reducing the speed limit to 35 mph and narrowing the lanes to discourage speeding (a “road diet”).

See all the suggestions and reader comments at: http://www.transitmiami.com/2010/02/02/transit-miami-recommendations-for-the-rickenbacker-causeway/

With the Virginia Key Master Plan being revamped, now is the time to “Rethink the Rickenbacker” or “Take Back the Rickenbacker.” Either statement would look good on a sign at the next Commission Meeting.