Miami Beach pulled 17 portable message boards off its streets and wants a count of every sign

The portable digital message boards that flashed traffic warnings at Miami Beach intersections are gone: the city removed all of the trailer-mounted boards it used for traffic management, keeping only those required for construction work, according to a city memo for the Nov. 9 meeting of the commission’s Public Safety and Neighborhood Quality of Life Committee.

The memo lists 17 message boards that were taken down, including two the police used at MacArthur Causeway and 5th Street and at Alton Road and 4th Street. Others stood at Alton Road and 8th Street, 5th Street and Euclid Avenue, Collins Avenue and 22nd Street, Dade Boulevard and North Michigan Avenue, 37th Street at Royal Palm and Prairie avenues, several points on Indian Creek Drive, Normandy Drive at Rue Bordeaux, Harding Avenue at 74th Street and Dickens Avenue at 77th Street. The city also removed five trailers with cameras, including ones at the Venetian Way east drawbridge and at Collins Avenue and 41st Street. Fixed traffic cameras still give staff a view of road conditions, the memo says.

The removals follow Resolution No. 2026-34318, sponsored by Commissioner Joseph Magazine and adopted June 24, which told the administration to cut visual clutter in public spaces, including unneeded digital boards and construction traffic devices. In September the commission asked for a progress report and a push to remove other unnecessary signs.

Counting the signs

The city has no inventory of its permanent street signs that would show which are damaged, duplicated, outdated or belong to another agency, the memo says. Public Works proposes adding a citywide, mapped sign inventory to its next pavement condition survey; the last one was done in 2024. The inventory alone wouldn’t remove any sign: each would still be reviewed by the department or agency that owns it. Its cost will be worked out when that survey is put out to bid.

For temporary cones, barricades and construction signs, contractors must follow approved traffic plans, and Public Works inspectors check permitted work zones and order displaced or unneeded devices removed. The department also responds to reports of abandoned devices from commission offices, code compliance and city crews, the memo says.

The committee meets at 9 a.m. Monday in the commission chambers at City Hall, 1700 Convention Center Drive, and on Zoom.