Miami consistently ranks among the top metropolitan areas with highest pedestrian and bicycle crash rates in the country, underscoring a critical need to provide for more transportation choices. The Miami DDA partnered with Miami-Dade County and City of Miami to implement a Complete Streets pilot project in the heart of Downtown Miami in response to the 2015 U.S. Department of Transportation’s Mayor’s Challenge for Safer People and Safer Streets. Fabian led this project while employed with the Downtown Miami Development Authority.

SE/SW 1st Street is a three lane, one-way corridor within Downtown Miami’s CBD heading eastbound. Through this project, and as part of Miami DDA's team, we led a team of experts in the development of a street redesign concept and implementation plan for SE/SW 1st street. A design workshop was held in April 2016 where key stakeholder groups were engaged and given the opportunity to provide input through a participatory process. Starter ideas were vetted and project goals confirmed. The plans for the pilot project aimed to address pedestrian safety and connectivity through the application of Complete Streets principles.

Through this process, the Miami DDA was able to get partner agencies onboard with the mission to repurpose this corridor into a multimodal street that provides mobility choices to all street users. As the first of its kind in Downtown Miami, this pilot project featured a bus-only lane and a dedicated high visibility bicycle lane, marking a shift from the conventional approach of designing our transportation network only for automobiles.

For the implementation of the project, the team coordinated approvals and funding of the proposed redesign with the City of Miami and Miami Dade County Department of Transportation and Public Works. A public outreach campaign and a media strategy was also coordinated as part of this initiative. Work on the street started on June 2017 and project was completed by mid-August 2017. The pilot project is still in place.

The implementation of this Complete Streets pilot project had the following media coverage:

"Why Downtown Miami's Getting Complete Streets" The New Tropic

"Planning Begins for Complete Streets Makeover" GlobeSt.com

"Safe bike lanes to debut in Miami and South Beach. Will regular folks jump on?" Miami Herald

"Downtown Miami’s getting dedicated bus and bike lanes" The New Tropic

"Miami DDA launches ‘Complete Streets’ initiative." Curbed Miami

"Complete Streets: SE/SW 1st Street in Downtown Miami" The Miami Bike Scene

This project has also been featured in two publications as a case study: 

-  "Best practices in implementing tactical transit lanes"

- "Fast-tracked, a tactical transit study"