North Beach's new traffic signal timing waits on the county as 66 city signals have faulty sensors
Miami Beach has new timing plans for 17 North Beach intersections, but the county has approved only 10; the city wants them running in November and police off the 71st Street junction.
Miami Beach has new signal timing ready for 17 North Beach intersections, but the Miami-Dade County transportation department, which has to approve and load the plans, had approved timing for only 10 of them as of Aug. 25, according to a city memo for the Nov. 9 meeting of the commission’s Public Safety and Neighborhood Quality of Life Committee.
The city’s transportation department says it has taken the delays to the county transportation department’s leadership and that its staff and consultant are ready to work from the county’s offices in November to load the new plans. Field checks and fine-tuning would follow in December, when seasonal traffic picks up, the memo says.
Which intersections
The pilot, started in March with seven data-collection devices and AI-based timing software, covers 71st Street at Bay Drive, Indian Creek Drive, Abbott, Harding and Collins avenues; 69th Street at Indian Creek, Abbott, Harding and Collins; Indian Creek Drive at Abbott Avenue and at 63rd/64th, 65th and 67th streets; Collins Avenue at 63rd Street; and Dickens Avenue at 73rd, 75th and 77th streets. Earlier state and county work focused on north-south roads such as Collins and Harding, the memo says, while the new plans also try to balance east-west streets.
Once the plans run, the city intends to work with police to end officers’ manual traffic control at the junction of Indian Creek Drive, 71st Street and Dickens Avenue. The consultant says the network only works if that intersection runs on its timed cycle, according to the memo, and officers would shift to keeping cars from blocking intersections.
Broken sensors citywide
The memo also says that 66 of the city’s 222 signalized intersections, about 29%, had at least one approach with broken vehicle or pedestrian detection, based on a county list from June 12. When the loops, cameras or push buttons fail, a signal can’t respond to traffic, which can mean long greens with no cars or missed walk signals.
Contractors on active projects are responsible for 26 of those repairs; the other 40 are in the county’s repair backlog, and the city has adjusted timing at some in the meantime, the memo says.
The committee meets at 9 a.m. Monday, Nov. 9, in the City Hall commission chambers and on Zoom (webinar ID 878 3335 2956).
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