Miami News Blog

Cyclists flooded the Rickenbacker Causeway this past Sunday for a memorial ride in honor of Christophe Le Canne, the 44-year-old biker killed in a horrific hit-and-run accident last weekend.

As you can see in the video -- shot by a Riptide reader -- hundreds rode in the memorial, which began outside Mast Academy and circled past the spot on Bear Cut Bridge where Le Canne died.

Police say Carlos Bertonatti, a 28-year-old aspiring musician who lived in his parents' posh Key Biscayne digs, was drunk when he slammed into Le Canne just after 8 a.m.

Bertonatti is accused of speeding away with Le Canne's bike lodged under his front fender, leading police on a chase, and aggressively refusing a blood test after he was finally arrested.

Bart Sherwood passes the grisly photos around the Miami-Dade County Commission chambers.

Photo by Tim Elfrink

Lycra pants mingled with business suits at the county commission chambers last night.

Three days after drunkenly killing a biker on the Rickenbacker Causeway and speeding away to his high-end Key Biscayne condo, would-be pop star Carlos Bertonatti is a free man this morning.

via Miami-Dade Police Department

On Riptide's message boards and across the web, Miami's bikers have raged about Sunday's gruesome hit-and-run accident near Key Biscayne that left 44-year-old cyclist Christophe Le Canne dead on the Rickenbacker Causeway.

via Miami Dade Police Department

​Carlos Bertonatti, a wannabe professional singer and all-around horrific driver -- with more than 40 citations in 12 years on the road -- was trashed when he slammed into Le Canne after 8 a.m. and then sped away without bothering to stop and help, police say.

The Masking Tape Film Festival. The Lifeguard Stand Film Festival. The Bacon, Lettuce, and Tomato Film Festival. Until these are formed, the Bicycle Film Festival is the weirdest and coolest niche film festival the world has yet invented.

Started nine years ago by Brendt Barbur, a New York City resident who was hit by a bus while cycling, the BFF, true to its name, celebrates the bicycle in all its various forms, and for the first time, comes to Miami beginning this Thursday night.

To call it just a film festival is reductive. The BFF is a celebration of the bicycle through all different types of art, not least of them being cycling itself, so the festival kicks off with a 9-mile sprint race tonight. Sponsored by Loose Cannons, the race goes from SoFlo Skate Shop in Coconut Grove to MiMo's News Lounge (5508 NE Fourth Court), where DJ Manuevers will host an after-party.

​I remember the first time I saw a fixed gear bicycle. It was 2003 in Berlin, and the kid had had it for a week and had already been in like six accidents. No brakes? I thought he was nuts.

But now the movement's pretty much universal, and here in Miami this Saturday, the movement is giving back. Rydel Deed of Miami Fixed Gear and Tony Blazejack are hosting the first annual Miami Cranksgiving to benefit the Camillus House.

Meet at Government Center (101 NW First Street, Miami) at 2 p.m. to register. At 2:30 p.m., the bike (doesn't need to be fixed--all styles welcome) race begins. Riders will stop at selected grocery store checkpoints along the roughly 17-mile course to purchase non-perishable food items from a checklist. The ten dollars you bring goes to buy the food, so 100% of your participation is helping to feed the homeless during the holidays.

FYI: A bike lock and a bag/basket are mandatory.

For more information, go to the Miami Bike Scene blog or the event Facebook page.

image via Coolhunting

We know there are lots of reasons Miamians haven't yet adopted bicycling en masse. Chief among them is the very real chance we could wind up as a hood ornament on someone's Escalade, followed closely by the fact that it is hard to effectively pimp out a bike. 

via Wikimedia Commons

The Venetian Causeway is scheduled to be closed for most of May while it undergoes maintenance. While this is an inconvenience for motorists who regularly use the bridge, it could pose major safety issues for pedestrians and bicyclists who rely on the causeway as a safer means of traveling between the Beach and mainland than either the MacArthur or the Julia Tuttle.

Automotive traffic will be rerouted toward the MacAruthur, but last month's fatality involving NFL player Donte' Stallworth hitting a pedestrian only underscores how dangerous the road can be for anyone traveling without a car.

Yesterday, Transit Miami implored its readers to call up Miami-Dade County Public Works to ask them to put up temporery barriers on the MacArthur to ensure that bicyclist and pedestrians can commute safely. However, that causeway is under the jurisdiction of the Florida Department of Transportation.

"We're making arrangements to make sure that bicyclists and pedestrians can travel safely," said Delfin Molins, Public Information Officer for MDCPW when we called him today.

Seems they've recieved Transit Miami's message loud and clear, however they have less than three days before the Venetian is scheduled to close. 

Let's face it. Miami is one of America's worst places to ride a bicycle.Guys on two wheels get whacked on Brickell, nailed in the Redland, and steamrollered on US 1. Bicycling magazine placed us at the bottom along with Dallas and Memphis not long ago. And Florida is clearly the worst in the nation -- with virtually all of our metro areas among the nation's deadliest.

So we're delighted by the plan -- stated on a memo after the jump -- to open the Rickenbacker Causeway to bicyclists this Saturday from 9 a.m. to noon. And we support Manny Diaz's Bike Miami, which will close some of downtown to cars on January 18. It's the best thing the guy has done in office

And we positively love the idea -- to be discussed at a public meeting January 26 to build a bike trail along Dade Boulevard to the beach.

Hey maybe the worm has turned. Maybe we can forever roll around in peace. Yeah, right....I'm not pumping up my tires just yet.

Chuck Strouse

This past Saturday one of two group-bike-ride events in Miami that carry the Critical Mass name met at Vizcaya Metro Rail station to traverse areas of downtown, Brickell Key and Coconut Grove via self propelled motion.

There’s a beautiful progression underway to create more accessible routes for bicyclists around the City of Miami. I’ve been singing my praises to the Coral Way and Miami Avenue projects and wistfully dream of one day seeing a complete circuit from Downtown to the Grove. Now, amidst the jam-packed speculation over options for new lanes and updated roadways, another possible victory for the Miami rider has worked its way into the rumor mill.

Vaguely indeterminate yet ultimately enticing word passed around at the start of the week that the city and county may consider collaborating on a Bayshore Drive reconstruction project. That said, it is our region’s current incentive to see any roadway projects as a potential for improved bike lanes and conditions. If we land a renovation project on Bayshore, then it is not unreasonable to hope that this could close a substantial portion of that previously alluded to circuit.

Yeah, we see your smug little face sitting behind the driver's wheel of a Prius. Oh gee look, you're saving the environment single handedly, aren't you there? Well your self satisfaction is about to take a plunge. Come back and talk to us when you bike 1,450 miles to arrive for your freshman year of college.

The Miami Hurricane interviews a Jamshed Jehangir who did just that.

Jehangir, known by friends as “JJ,” biked from his home in Downers Grove, Ill. to the Coral Gables campus – a 1,450-mile journey that took him 17 days.

“I was trying to find an adventure,” said Jehangir, who is majoring in studio music and jazz. “If you have an opportunity like that, you take it.”

Suddenly we feel a lot worse for driving the entire five minutes to work everyday.

--Kyle Munzenrieder

After seven months of discussion, organization, gestation and planning, the efforts of the Bicycle Action Committee are coming together. From maps to action plans, the BAC’s goal to make Miami a “Bicycle Friendly” city by the standards of the League of American Cyclists will soon be underway in a visceral, hold-in-your-hand-and-weep-with-glee kind of manner. An official Action Plan, given a season of drafting, revision, redrafting, rerevision, and further draftvisions, will be readable, presentable and available within the foreseeable future. What does that mean for the Miami cyclist, beyond being the promise of supportive paperwork?

One aspect you will be able to take on your ride will be a map demonstrating friendly routes and facilities. I’ve been involved with the mapping process in the form of our surveys, mentioned in last month’s Bike Blog, as well as with trying to gather community support. This is an ongoing process, and the map may be dependent to some degree on the sponsorship of local bicycle shops. Any interested parties would receive advertising space and location markers on the final map, given a not-unreasonably priced sponsorship fee.

Florida seems to have more license plate designs per capita than anywhere else. We work hard to compensate for something, like perhaps our crappy drivers, through legions of themed designs. From proclaiming that ‘everyday is a gift’ through hospice care to saving our diverse array of endangered species to asking drivers to share the road, we’ve managed to keep the plate manufacturing entities well-employed. One displaced design that sticks with me is a jarring gash of salmon pastel over dentist office turquoise and blues that dubs Florida the ‘state of the arts’. With artistic laureates like Britto and Jimmy Buffet to represent creative ingenuity and original expression for us, it’s no wonder our ‘state of the arts’ plate looks like an art deco designer exploded upon it. Given our artistic ambitions and, thankfully, growing artistic community, why not incorporate some of that fresh talent into the ‘state’ part of our ‘state of the arts’?

All that dreaming longingly about someday seeing bike lanes along Coral Way has finally paid off. Mike Lydon of Transit Miami wrote last week: “expect to see new bicycle lanes from SW 12th Avenue to SW 15th Road in the not-too-distant-future.” The lanes will span about 16 blocks. From there, they will connect to the upcoming bike lanes on Broadway (SW 15th Road). Good so far, right?

This gets better. Since Broadway is scheduled to be painted with bike lanes in the near future, they will then provide access to the new South Miami Avenue lanes. These lanes travel southwest toward the Bayshore Drive bike path into the Grove, in addition to a corridor leading toward 12th Street in the Brickell area. Essentially, a bike lane circuit is in development that will provide clearer access for riders heading to the Brickell and Downtown areas.

Last week’s post covered the Bicycle Action Committee’s biking trends survey regarding local riding habits. Riders seemed to stay bicycle law savvy, though admittedly choose which moments to obey the rules. This week covers the geography of ridership, particularly the participants’ daily jaunts and where they want to see bike lanes.

Before getting into the details, here’s some pertinently killer news: The survey is taking account of riders’ wishes for bike lanes in order to make Miami a bike-friendly city. A few prospective lanes have been discussed for diverse areas, but one rumored major adjustment to the Miami bicycling situation may be solidifying in the near future. Rumor has it that the FDOT has agreed to include bike lanes on the Third Avenue section of Coral Way. This would allow a smooth route into Downtown by way of the upcoming Broadway and South Miami Avenue lanes. This is awesome, considering many of the survey participants asked specifically for Coral Way accommodations.

The last few weeks have been important for the drafting and solidification of the Master Plan for the Bicycle Action Committee. Amidst conceptualizations and revisions, a solid plan is in development to make sure that Miami is on an effective path to Bicycle Friendliness. An important factor for its development has been the participation of cyclists in a survey on riding in Miami. The results are an informative collection of the needs of cyclists prone to ride most days of the week.

The survey broke down into several lines of questioning. Form questions gauged riding habits and tendencies toward traffic mindfulness, which counterbalanced open inquiries as to where we need lanes and accommodations. Based on word-of-mouth, on-spot surveying during the July 12 Critical Mass, and a link on the Critical Mass Miami message board, about 100 cyclists gave an impression of the riding community and are currently helping to make the BAC’s work more effective.

Greetings from Massachusetts!

I don’t love to compare cities with awesome bicycle accommodations to Miami’s developing status, but I’ve been lucky enough to pedal around Boston this weekend and figured this would be a good chance to cover what’s going on outside of South Florida. I’ve not had the pleasure of bicycling a city outside of Miami, so while on vacation up here, I decided to try a first-hand experience. Here’s how it went:

I started in Waltham, a happy little township about 15 miles outside of Boston’s center. The town is along the Charles River, a waterway that winds into Boston proper. Along the river is the 17 mile-long Charles River Reservation, a park offering outlets to town along its route and a lengthy bicycle trail into Boston. The trail is gorgeously surrounded by trees, wildlife (I saw a wild bunny rabbit -- who knew those existed?) and a consistent view of the river. I easily forgot the commercial centers mere yards away from the path.

Carlos Lastres is a Miami native with one of the neatest jobs Downtown. His recently launched enterprise, Go Green Pedicabs, brings to Miami a service that is increasingly prevalent in hip cities around the world. The pedicab, a tricycle carriage way more posh than your hackneyed rickshaw, can take Downtown commuters around their commercial district in human-propelled style. Tackling the confined radius of the Bayfront and Downtown domain, Go Green Pedicab brings an environmentally conscious treat to the Bayside tourists and urban office building jockeys.

The trick is locality. Go Green eases the burdens on taxi drivers who are losing money on commuters taking quick trips. According to Lastres, the taxi drivers have welcomed this alternative transit service with encouragement.

“I’ve gotten great support,” Lastres says. “The taxi driver’s business is to drive long distances. His business isn’t for him to have someone jump in the car and drive two blocks. These guys who have to move their cars three blocks down have just lost their spot where they had the ability to take someone to the beach or airport. And we’re not charging.”

Yeah, for real -- you can ride the pedicab for free.

Miami’s Saturday morning Critical Mass celebrated its second anniversary this weekend with a surprise visit from City of Miami Mayor Manny Diaz. The ride included a picnic at Peacock Park at which the Mayor greeted a posse of fifty bicyclists to partake in vegan cupcakes, freeze pops and cheerful bicycle advocacy. The last few months have provided multiple instances of city involvement in bicycle-related action. It would seem the mayor has bicycles on his mind.

The monthly ride rolls in advocacy of creating a bicycle-friendly city and all that entails from community involvement in alternate transportation to environmental awareness. Since the city’s initiation of the Bicycle Action Committee last March, a growing support for the cyclists in town has been enhanced by the participation in the monthly rides of several movers and shakers, including a trip over the Rickenbacker and subsequent break at Jimbo’s with Commissioner Joe Sanchez and this weekend’s guest appearance by Mayor Diaz. Could these political shout outs be a sign of good things to come?

The M-Path offers an often adventurous north and south passage. Broken pavement, unspecific route signs and herds of careening vehicles intersecting the path create challenging obstacles. Bicycling commuters cannot simply zone out in the monotony of traffic like their vehicular counterparts. Sporadic and inattentive cross traffic requires alertness; drivers often do not see bicyclists who are crossing the intersection mere inches from their bumpers. This precarious situation is enhanced by a number of intersections where the M Path seems to cease existence.

The M-Path is broken in diverse senses of the word. Aggressive roots tear their way through the pavement in multiple locations. The Vizcaya to Brickell section is murder on a bicycle, even with shock absorbers. I usually wind up riding on the street just a few feet from the path- I’d rather contend with traffic than shred my butt. Additionally, the mapping of the pathway itself is broken by inconsistencies in the designated route. Complicated intersections and roadways create gaps in the route, sometimes diverting portions of the M-Path with confounding detours. These are roughly marked by directional signs, some of which are unreliable with their advice.

June’s U.S. Conference of Mayors gave some love to bicyclists across nation. There’s much we may anticipate based on their proclamations. Here’s the short version:

The broadly named Transportation and Communications Committee drafted a resolution titled “Ensuring Bicycling is Integrated into National Transportation, Climate, Energy and Health Policy Initiatives.” This document is loaded with good news for bicycle riders and commuters. This is another step among the multiple opportunities Mayor Manny Diaz recently seized to reverse the city of Miami’s legacy as a bicycling death trap. The consensus of our nation’s mayors in bringing the resolution to their own cities is an added perk.

This was probably the crappiest week so far this year to be a bicycle commuter. The timing was consistent everyday: show up to work with the sunrise and end work in time for the deluge. Apocalyptic thunderstorms helped me celebrate the end of each work day by holding out until my ride home to kick off the party.

Miami’s regularly scheduled 3 and 4 o’clock summer rain showers help combat our ongoing drought situation, yet the afternoon downfall plunges me into one of the tragic aspects of being a cycling commuter in Miami: there’s virtually no transit alternative if you are car-free and caught in the rain.

Nothing says awesome like watching over forty cyclists form a train down Main Highway. This past Saturday's Critical Mass made a parade of cruisers, fixed-gears, road and mountain bikes and set a steady pace from Vizcaya to Matheson Hammock. After diving into the suspiciously murky lagoon at Matheson, we dodged raindrops to make the remaining few miles back to our starting point. Despite a little rain, good cheer and progressive activity prevailed and the ride ended happily – no flats, no crashes, no problem.

When I asked ask a couple of riders how they felt about the cycling climate in South Florida, they sounded off the usual call for more bike lanes and accommodations – an evolving and unending prayer to the FDOT and Transit Departments to make more Miami bike-friendly.

To the punk who stole my bicycle from in front of the Downtown Courthouse:

I won that bicycle in a contest and had only enjoyed it for two days before you figured you could use it for something better. Maybe you pawned it for crack. Maybe it wound up on a cargo freighter on the Miami River- the kind that seems to have a miraculous number of unwanted bicycles piled in a floating hillock awaiting transport to somewhere exotic and bicycle-friendly. Maybe you are enjoying your own comfortable jaunt around Miami on your new cruiser-road hybrid. Whatever your motivation, you have deprived me of something sentimental and enjoyable, and you’ve perpetuated a trend that historically made Miami recognizable by Kryptonite, a bicycle lock company, as one of the 10 worst cities for bicycle theft for several years.

Between an army of pawn shops and a consistent shipping industry, the outlet for bicycle thievery is easily provided.

Good news! Last week, we wrote that the City of Miami is looking at places they can refit to be accommodating to bicycles. The Bike Blog plugged a few ideas, in particular Coral Way, which is up for resurfacing soon – a great opportunity to add bike lanes.

It seems that Miami agrees:

The city of Miami's Bicycle Action Committee is currently working on two maps, one that would be a kind of “user map” and the other a “future bike routes” map.

The first of the two, a map showing current bike facilities in the city, isn’t a bad idea, per se – but it does strike the Bike Blog as being a little like a treasure map showing where the booty isn’t.

But the second map, identifying high-priority bike routes within the city of Miami, is a potentially useful tool.

We’d like to throw out a few ideas:

In recent months, Miami Mayor Manny Diaz and District 3 Commissioner Joe Sanchez have shown increased interest in promoting bicycling in Miami. Last March, Mayor Diaz announced the formation of a new Bicycle Action Committee as part of his Green Commission, which Comm. Sanchez chairs.

A month later, Comm. Sanchez joined Emerge Miami’s Saturday Critical Mass ride in a show of support for cycling.

It’s exciting to see political interest in making Miami a better place for bikers – but interest isn’t action. The next question, and it isn't rhetorical, is when Miamians can expect to see actual change.

So far, the Bicycle Action Committee has focused mainly on creating maps of existing bike accommodations – that shouldn’t take too long – and identifying good places for new stuff like lanes, signage, or even ‘bike boulevards,’ a relatively new idea in planning for bikes, in which side streets are refitted to dissuade cars and encourage bikes.

But if the city’s politicos – Commissioner Sanchez, in particular - want to prove what they’re made of when it comes to getting things done, they may have a good chance coming up. Apparently, Coral Way is slated for resurfacing – and that means there’s an opportunity for long-term, permanent changes in how the street works.

The city, in particular Commissioner Sanchez, in whose district the work will be taking place, should push for bike lanes on Coral Way. Here's why:

As reported in the Herald (which is so stingy with its online news that the link will be dead by tomorrow - what's up with that?), a majority of Miami Beach City Commissioners voted in the city's neighborhoods committee not to recommend a plan that would put bike lanes on Alton Road and instead endorse one that would feature super-wide sidewalks.

(If this were Canada, we might see bands of renegade bikers painting their own lane.)

The recommendation will be taken into consideration at the next City Commission meeting on May 14.

Of course, the ultimate decision isn't the city's to make -- it's the Florida Department of Transportation's, and that makes things more interesting.

Well, folks, guess which city recently won the distinction of a write-up from Bicycling magazine for being on of the three “worst cities for cycling?”

Yeah, it's not much of a surprise. Still, as bicycling slowly peddles its way up the agenda in Miami, a little bad publicity can't hurt when it comes to getting city and county politicians to start turning words into action.

The article appears in Bicycling magazine's June 2008 issue (yes, I know it's April, I don't get it either) which chose to honor Miami-Dade county – along with Dallas and Memphis – for its overall suckiness when it comes to cycling.

The Bike Blog agrees with the article, written by one Christine Mattheis, but that isn’t saying much: apparently, her research into the matter consisted of reading my own January 31 article, ‘Share the F*cking Road!.’

While flattering - and it's nice to see the magazine credit the New Times as its source, unlike a some other publications we know - it'd be nice to know a little bit more about how Miami stacks up against other crappy biking cities. For a more in-depth look at what makes a city good for cycling – although it doesn’t go into what makes it bad – check out the League of American Bicyclists list of “Bicycle Friendly Communities.”

If Miami leaders - and I'm talking city, county, whatever - want some concrete goals to shoot for in making this place better for cycling, I'd like to see them try to get on that list. It could be done, too - but we'd have to cut the bullshit and get serious about developing and implementing new, long-sighted master plans.

By the way, the bit quoted in the Bicycling Magazine article about the city having no finished bikes lanes is apparently technically untrue – the City claims bike lanes on half of the Venetian and half of the Rickenbacker as City of Miami bike lanes. Still – seems kind of cheaty, doesn’t it?

-- Isaiah Thompson