Guess what? Free Miami Beach parking

To cut down on bottlenecks along Miami Beach’s Alton Road as road work limits auto traffic, the city this week began a free trolley service along Alton Road and West Avenue.

Trolleys are to run about every 10 minutes from 8 a.m. to midnight seven days a week. Each trolley can carry 25 passengers.

As a bonus, trolley riders will get up to four hours of free parking at the Fifth and Alton city garage – unheard of in Miami Beach – with the use of the trolley voucher.

The city is even planning valet parking service at 11th Street between Alton Road and West Avenue for $5 for up to three hours or $8 for up to six hours. That has yet to begin.

The trolley service even takes into account those who use bicycles to get there: it has an external bike rack.

The trolley will travel from Fifth Street to Lincoln Road along Alton Road and West Avenue, making 20 stops along the way.

The city plans to soon add WiFi service on the trolleys.

The trolley service is geared to operate through the end of construction in the area in 2015.

As the trolleys roll, the Florida Department of Transportation will continue with the Alton Road reconstruction project, which is aimed both at controlling flooding during storms and improving transportation.

The project includes installing three pumping stations on Alton, which is also State Road 907, at Fifth, 10th and 14th streets.

But the state is also rebuilding the roadway, driveways, sidewalks and pedestrian ramps and extending sidewalks, which will remove permanently about 90 on-street parking spaces.

Concrete islands are being installed in the Alton Road median to manage left turns at Ninth, 13th and 14th streets, 14th Court and 15th Terrace, and along Alton Road from 16th Street to Lincoln Road.

Traffic and pedestrian signals are being replaced at intersections and new street lights are being installed.

The work has forced that area of Alton Road to become northbound only, with the southbound traffic diverted to West Avenue. The city’s trolleys will have to follow those detours.