This Sunday there’s a themed bike tour exploring urban Miami, highlighting the potential of a future Flagler Trail multi-use path. The two-hour tour, hosted by Dade Heritage Trust in partnership with Friends of Flagler Trail, will give you a peek into a seldom seen side of downtown. Tickets are $10, or $5 for Dade Heritage Trust members.

Dade Heritage Trust regularly hosts bike and walking tours to help share the importance of celebrating and saving the places that help shape Miami and to encourage Miamians to get involved in the future of our city.

Here’s why Sunday’s tour focuses on the potential of Flagler Trail.

WHERE THE PATH WOULD BE CREATED

There is a proposal to have Flagler Trail link existing bike paths and connect Little Haiti and El Portal to downtown alongside parts of Henry Flagler’s old Florida East Coast Railway. It would be part of a larger Miami Loop, which would encompass 225-miles of trails, connecting schools, parks and other popular locations.

A PATH FOR EVERYONE

While the city is currently studying whether the Flagler Trail is feasible, it’s leaning away from having the trail along the FEC Railway and instead providing bike lanes on Miami’s roads, said Laurie Fucini-Joy, director of Transportation Engineering & Planning at Urban Health Partnerships, a non-profit working to improve health and wellbeing of our community.

Urban Health Partnerships and Friends of Flagler Trail are advocating for a multi-use path along the FEC Railway. That means in areas around downtown, the path would have just enough room for bikers. But as you’d ride further north past the Design District, it would become wider and include space for both bikers and pedestrians.

“Biking along Miami streets – unless you are really experienced – doesn’t attract recreational riders, kids, or people walking,” Fucini-Joy said. “We really are hoping that over time as we build advocacy, more and more people see that a multi-use option is way better than a network of bike lanes.”

HOW TO GET INVOLVED

If you can’t join Sunday’s ride, subscribe to Urban Health Partnerships’s newsletter for regular updates on the trail’s development.

Flagler Trail is one of many Dade Heritage Trust projects. To see what else is on its radar, check out this list of Miami’s most endangered sites, locations that without attention and repair will deteriorate and be wiped from the city’s history.   

PRODUCED BY THE NEW TROPIC CREATIVE STUDIO WITH DADE HERITAGE TRUST

Anyone that lives in Miami knows that rent here is too damn high. And we have good reason to feel that way. According to 2015 U.S. Census estimates, the average Miami resident spends about 28 percent of their income on housing costs — a larger share than what residents pay for rent in any other U.S. city, including New York and Los Angeles.

And there are many folks with lower incomes, especially in Miami’s African-American and Hispanic communities, who pay more than 50 percent of their income on rent, making it a constant struggle for them to afford basics like nutritious food, health insurance, and transportation.

That’s why over the next few weeks we’ve decided to explore the issue of affordable housing in our city. We want to find out how the shortage of affordable housing impacts our quality of life and identify potential solutions to fix this serious problem. As always, we will be asking you to share your questions and concerns about housing in Miami.

What do you want to know? Head here to tell us what’s on your mind. And next week we’ll put a few of those questions up to a vote so you all can decide on what we’ll dig into on this topic.

Read more about it here.

Marijuana madness. Even though Miami-Dade commissioners passed a law in 2015 that allowed cops to give a simple citation to someone busted with 20 grams of marijuana or less, Miami-Dade police and other local agencies are arresting more people for pot than ever. Last year more than 2,000 people were arrested for misdemeanor-level possession.  And here’s the rub: state prosecutors usually drop the charges for low-level marijuana possession, meaning the arrests waste a lot of time and taxpayer money and add an unnecessary headache (not to mention an arrest record) for those who are caught with small amounts of weed. (Miami New Times)

Meet your new supreme court justice. Governor Ron DeSantis made his first selection for the Florida Supreme Court yesterday: Judge Barbara Lagoa. She’s the first Cuban-American woman to sit on the Miami appeals court, appointed in 2006 by then Gov. Jeb Bush, and she’s written more than 300 majority opinions in her career.  She’s expected to be part of a new conservative look for the court. DeSantis has two other selections to make soon, replacing three retiring judges who often sided with liberal issues. (Miami Herald)

A Cuban sandwich pizza? We like the sound of that. In fact, why didn’t someone come up with this idea sooner? Versailles partnered up with Miami chef Michael Schwartz to create this brilliant pizza combination. We’re talking roasted pork, cured ham, pickles, gruyere and fontina cheese, and mustard. And it even has a croqueta on top. The pizza will be sold at Harry’s Pizzeria and Genuine Pizza restaurants starting Jan. 14. (Miami.com)

Not the murder the capital anymore. Back in the ‘80s, in the days of the Cocaine Cowboys, it wasn’t unusual for Miami to have about 300 homicides a year. But those days are long gone. In fact, the murder rate has dropped dramatically, with 51 homicides last year, down from 59 in 2017.  Police credit the drop in crime to new crime-deterring techniques, including the use of more cameras. (Miami Herald)

Doral’s not so bad. While Doral often gets trashed for things like heavy traffic, the price of real estate, its endless strip malls and poor urban planning, this love letter to Doral argues that there  are actually some pretty worthwhile reasons to visit the city. For one, the food. Doral actually has some pretty decent chain restaurants, including Anthony’s Coal-Fired Pizza (get the cauliflower pizza, trust us), Dragonfly, and Shorty’s BBQ.  And there’s plenty of solid craft beer like Biscayne Bay Brewing Company, MIA Beer Company and the upcoming Tripping Animals Brewing Co. So maybe it’s time to give Doral another chance? (Miami.com)

ONE MORE THING

After we shared your thoughts on the best ways to recycle in Miami, we decided it would help to see things in action.

So check out our Facebook page today at 1 p.m. as we get the breakdown from some Miami-Dade County staff members.

– The New Tropic