Miami-Dade County is studying a potential pedestrian crosswalk at Kumquat Avenue after years of safety concerns along Douglas Road, but gaps in the area’s sidewalk network could limit who can safely reach it.
Every morning, South Grove resident Leah Ringelstein stands in the middle of traffic on Douglas Road, spreads her arms and waits for her three children to safely cross the street on their bikes to Coconut Grove Elementary School.
Douglas Road, a major county thoroughfare, also divides neighborhoods in the South Grove from the rest of Coconut Grove. Residents say crossing or turning onto the road can be dangerous because of fast-moving traffic, limited sidewalks and crosswalks, and dense foliage that can block visibility.
Now, after years of concerns from residents, Miami-Dade County is studying whether to add a pedestrian crossing at Kumquat Avenue and Douglas Road. County officials expect to make a recommendation in late October.
“It’s frustrating to see how people don’t stop,” Ringelstein said. “I do think [adding a crosswalk] will encourage more families to be pedestrians.”
In May, Ringelstein and other South Grove residents met with Diego Abreu, a staff member in County Commissioner Raquel Regalado’s office, and representatives of the county’s Department of Transportation and Public Works.
Ringelstein initially sought a crosswalk at Loquat Avenue and Douglas Road. But county officials instead agreed to study a potential crossing one block away at Kumquat Avenue.
Abreu said Kumquat was considered a better location because Douglas Road has sidewalks at the intersection, which are a mandatory requirement for a crosswalk to be installed.
The absence of sidewalks along other stretches of Douglas Road south of Grand Avenue makes adding crossings elsewhere more difficult, Abreu said, calling it a “tough process”.
Now, the county is scheduling a traffic study to determine what kind of pedestrian crossing, if any, would be appropriate at Kumquat. The study will consider whether a crossing should include additional safety measures such as flashing lights or a stop sign, Abreu said.
Once a recommendation is made, the county would need to identify funding for the project.
For Ringelstein and other residents, concerns about crossing Douglas Road are heightened during the school year, when children bike and walk to school. Miami-Dade County Public Schools students who live within two miles of their school typically do not qualify for school bus service.
In July, Ringelstein surveyed neighbors about adding a crossing on Douglas Road. Sixty people responded within five days, she said, many sharing their own experiences trying to cross the road.
Residents’ concerns are underscored by a fatal crash eight years ago
David Hertzig, an 85-year-old Coconut Grove resident and math professor at Miami Dade College, was struck by a hit-and-run driver while riding his bicycle across Douglas Road, a block from the location now being studied. He died from his injuries days later. No arrest was made.
His daughter, Amie Hertzig, still lives in the South Grove, a block from where her father was struck.
“We have needed safe crossing on Douglas for a long time, and the traffic has gotten exponentially worse as Coconut Grove is developing at such a rapid pace,” Hertzig said in a written statement to the Spotlight.
But a crossing at Kumquat would address only part of a larger pedestrian problem along Douglas Road.
Lauren Evans lives in the Ye Little Wood neighborhood, about a half-mile south of Kumquat. She bikes her son to Coconut Grove Elementary School and must cross Douglas Road to reach the Commodore Trail on the east side of the roadway.
There are no sidewalks in her neighborhood that would provide a continuous route north to the potential crossing being studied at Kumquat, she said.
Evans supports a crossing at Kumquat but also wants the county to consider a safer crossing closer to her neighborhood. She said she has not heard back directly from the county about a potential crossing at Pine Avenue and Douglas Road.
“Our neighborhood is not unique. Everyone living west of Douglas [Road] in the South Grove is encountering the same barrier when they’re trying to go to the Center Grove,” Evans said. “It’s really about whether Douglas [Road] is going to remain this barrier that divides our communities and separates our kids from the places that they should be able to reach.”
Cathy Dos Santos, executive director of Transit Alliance Miami, a nonprofit that promotes pedestrian and cyclist safety, said roads such as Douglas have historically been designed primarily to move cars, making pedestrian improvements more difficult to add later.
“That’s why 37th [Douglas Road] is this wide street that doesn’t have as many crossings because historically we have designed the road to just move as many cars as possible,” Dos Santos said. “It should be a problem that even when our government is following everything to a T, it still takes really long. … We have made it harder to build anything that does not just prioritize cars.”
For now, Ringelstein is encouraged that the county is studying a crossing, even if it would not solve all of the pedestrian safety problems along Douglas Road.
“Every day when I get to that corner, I tell my kids, ‘Guys, one day we’re gonna have a crosswalk here!’”
