Traffic Safety in the Gables
People Are Getting Hit by Cars in Coral Gables. What’s Being Done?
In the first four months of this year, four people were killed on Coral Gables streets in traffic crashes, a number that exceeds the annual total fatalities in any of the past seven years. Among those killed was University of Miami student Daniel Bishop, a popular and promising senior who was heading to campus on a scooter on March 4 when he was hit on LeJeune Road near the Shops at Merrick Park.
Bishop’s death is only one of several tragedies that have struck Coral Gables recently. There have also been 749 traffic crashes in the first three months of the year, putting the city on pace to shatter last year’s total of 2,798, according to police figures. The soaring accident rate has alarmed Gables residents and officials alike.
“The traffic, the speeding — it’s horrendous,” Zully Pardo said at a May 1 town hall meeting at the Coral Gables Country Club. A 40-year Gables resident, Pardo says she has seen a steady increase in the traffic cutting through her residential neighborhood north of Southwest Eighth Street. “Our city was built for cars,” she says. “Now, we need to address the needs of pedestrians and cyclists. With all the accidents we’re seeing, this seems like the perfect moment to do it.”
Coral Gables Police Chief Ed Hudak also spoke briefly at that meeting, saying “Fatalities have spiked recently,” but offered no details. Gables police say the circumstances of Bishop’s death remain under review. Veronica Bilbao de la Vega, the driver of the car that hit Bishop, was issued two traffic citations.
In the meantime, our political leaders seem to be listening. In April, all five city commissioners endorsed Vision Zero, a program dedicated to eliminating traffic fatalities by 2030. The resolution directs the city manager to come up with an action plan “consisting of studies, community outreach, pilot programs, and infrastructure improvements” to reach that goal.
The Commission also signed a letter to the Florida Department of Transportation outlining safety recommendations, including lowering the speed limit on LeJeune Road from 40 to 35 miles an hour and installing dozens of pedestrian crossing signals on busy thoroughfares like US-1 and LeJeune, Bird, and Douglas roads.
“We are a built city, but not built to handle this level of traffic,” says Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson, who has taken the lead in pushing for safer streets. “I believe that people are now willing to embrace things they didn’t think important before — sidewalks, speed tables, speed radar signs, medians, and other traffic improvements.”
Among changes that Anderson endorses are pedestrian scrambles, where red lights stop all traffic at busy intersections to allow pedestrians to cross in all directions, including diagonally, at the same time. A scramble is in use at the busy intersection of Red Road and Sunset Drive, for example.
In the wake of Daniel Bishop’s death, Anderson says she has also talked to University of Miami officials about enhancing safety for students. “When we have an issue as marked as this, it changes the thinking of the community. More people are willing to embrace changes — a crossing, a sidewalk — to avoid fatalities,” says the vice mayor.
Adds Anderson: “Why am I so sensitive to traffic issues? Because my sister was run over by a truck [years ago in Miami]. Miraculously, she survived. We need to make things safer.”
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