Cutler Bay taking action to cut down on traffic congestion
MIAMI - We all know traffic is bad in South Florida, some areas worse than others.
But one city is coming up with innovative solutions to cut down on commute times.
"How long was your commute," CBS News Miami's Keith Jones asked Belinda Bermudez.
"At least an hour and a half," she replied.
An hour and a half, one way, to go 17 miles. That's three hours a day to and from work, or 15 hours a week in a car.
Bermudez, who works in Coral Gables, was spending roughly 29 days a year commuting to work. Her boss Robert Cooke, founder of Cooke and Carbonell Law, was living a similar 'life in transit' from Cutler Bay to the office in the Gables.
"Driving Old Cutler (Road) from my house to Coral Gables was an hour and a half each way. If I left at five in the morning, it was 45 minutes each way, or left at 8:30 in the evening after the traffic was done," he said.
His lease in the Gables was up and so was his patience. So he moved the office to Cutler Bay where he and most of his employees live and office space is 30 percent cheaper.
So what's the commute now?
"Five to eight minutes," said Cooke.
As development boomed in Homestead and Florida City over the years, so-called 'cut through communities' like Cutler Bay and Palmetto Bay have become caught in the congested crosshairs of growth.
"Since the time I first started campaigning, first thing, the traffic is horrible," said Cutler Bay Mayor Tim Meerbot who is on a mission to curb commuter traffic.
His first goal was to bring in more business, like Cooke's law firm. Now his vision has become much bigger, including the old Southland Mall.
"We have been successful and brought in a developer who's gonna spend $1.5 billion-plus developing this area. So that doesn't just mean additional apartments and things like that, but that also means additional 100,000 square feet of retail space, 60,000 square feet of medical space," said Meerbot.
That will translate into available jobs so residents won't have to commute to Coral Gables or downtown Miami. It also means not traveling to Kendall for medical diagnostics.
The construction of the "busway rapid transit system," the county's $300 million mass transit system, will by-pass the cluttered Turnpike, US 1, and Old Cutler Road when taking commuters into Coral Gables, downtown Miami, or to connecting train, effectively reducing the number of personal cars.
Roundabouts are being added reducing stop-and-go traffic.
Cutler Bay Town Manager Rafael Casals spearheaded another traffic reduction initiative.
"I call it a government Uber service or Lyft service," he said.
It's Go Connect, a county program. Users of the app are geo-mapped and then picked them up and taken anywhere within city limits.
"We have 5,500 riderships a month on the Go Connect. But then we also have another 4,500 on a regular trolley service as well. So that's almost 10,000 residents that we are moving," said Casals.
Theoretically, that's ten thousand fewer cars on the road and cutting down commute times.
A new bus terminal is under construction in Cutler Bay across the street from the mall. The parking lot is going to be used as a 'park and ride'. All of this redevelopment is expected to be completed in the next four to five years and hopefully, alleviate a lot of the congestion.