Pace of revamps: 33 years for I-395, 14 years for Flagler

A third of a century ago, Florida began a revamp of I-395 that became the downtown Signature Bridge that drivers have come to know and curse. Miami Today reported last week that its finish, which after delays was due in 2027, has now been put off until 2029 – if all goes well.

Meanwhile, a Flagler Street “beautification” born in 2011 has finally reopened to cars the eastern two blocks on the backbone roadway through downtown. Miami Today also revealed last week that no end is in sight for the western stretch because no contractor is yet hired to do it.

We are not making any of that up.

Is it any wonder that as Miami’s economy roars, downtown sputters? 

It’s hard enough to get around without closing the main east-west corridor to cars for years and then placing short-term detours everywhere as the vast bridge and highways job sends alerts every few days of shutdowns and new traffic patterns. 

Who could track all the shifts? Where to go? Better to just avoid downtown.    

The hope is that Flagler and our expressways may be far better when work finally ends. But will ultimate gains justify years of pains? We know how downtown retailers and restaurants that closed in the turmoil would reply.

Any major physical change in the heart of a bustling city is painful. That’s expected.

But what we should not face is lowballed claims of completion time. We’d like our public agencies to be both straightforward and able to deliver on what they promise. Is that too much to ask?

Here’s how we got to downtown gridlock.

Return to 1992, when the state transportation team began to redesign the I-395 bridge from downtown to Watson Island. Work halted in 1994 when the federal government ordered the state team to “identify and address the disproportionately high and adverse human health and environmental effects” of the job on the area’s low-income and minority residents. That detoured work for a decade.

In 2004, the bridge got back on track. But in 2006 a group of so-called stakeholders was formed to vet the four potential bridge designs. After three more years, they chose the “Wishbone Arch” design – no, it’s not supposed to depict a 330-foot-tall giant spider over downtown, though it sure looks like it.

So in 2011 the state committed to “creating a visually appealing bridge,” but the advisory team went back to the drawing board, looked this time at 15 bridge designs, and returned with – you guessed it – the same design.

The state pointed out that the design would raise the price by hundreds of millions of dollars, though nobody said it would also take years extra to build.

So Miami’s Downtown Development Authority voted to ask the state to “honor its commitment to provide a signature bridge design for I-395,” preferably the Wishbone Arch (or giant spider) variant.

Concerned that the state might nonetheless take a less-costly and less-distinctive (and perhaps faster) bridge route, Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado and commission Chairman Marc Sarnoff sued the state transportation department in 2013 and then settled out of court to get the design that is slowly coming together today (three of the spider’s legs, or wishbone arches, are already skyward, with the rest to come in the years ahead). 

The cost estimate then was $500 million to $600 million. Last week the state said the current estimate has risen from $818 million last spring to $866 million today. Who knows what the cost will be in 2029 – or what the true completion date will be.

As the bridge was in design selection, the Downtown Development Authority was creating a Flagler Street Task Force in 2011 to rehabilitate the historic downtown corridor to bring in “bustling sidewalk cafes, high-quality shops and dining establishments, national and international institutions, and catalytic national retailers.” 

Again, we aren’t making this up. All you have to do is look at Flagler Street today to see how far off the mark that was.

“Your issue is not going to be money,” said Mr. Sarnoff, who was both city commissioner and authority chairman. “It’s going to be reconstruction.” Truer words were never spoken, but he underestimated a bit: “Six months of interruptions. But if not now, when?”

It wasn’t “now.” An original concept and design were OK’d and started. Then the development authority began over with a new design and concept for the half-mile of Flagler from the bay west. Efforts began in May 2021 and now two whole blocks have been finished and reopened to auto traffic, if anyone plans a leisurely two-block drive. 

As for the west part of that half mile, it’s back to the drawing board, at least as far as finding a contractor is concerned. You can’t really rush these things.

So two upgrades undertaken with good intentions in 1992 and 2011, respectively, go down the road at government speed to someday completions. Meanwhile, downtown suffers on – and on.