Miami Beach is Raising Streets by 2 Feet to Combat Rising Seas
The City of Miami Beach is raising streets in an effort to protect the city from the impending sea level rise. We all know that the Sunset Harbour and West Avenue neighborhoods of Miami Beach have been BURIED by construction over the past couple of years, but this new project all but guarantees that construction will continue for the time being. In all honesty, the construction is welcome, considering that we are all well aware that every year, we are seeing our streets flooded with more and more water. The West Avenue and Sunset Harbour areas are consistently underwater due to sea level rise, and raising them is one major aspect of the City’s solution.
The first phase of this project began in February 2015 and as of April 2016, about 70% of the Sunset Harbour neighborhood is completed, with streets being raised an astonishing 2+ feet (as you can see in my photo above).
Public Works director Eric Carpenter made a good point when he announced that the street raising project should coincide with the already-planned underground infrastructure work, rather than subjecting West Avenue to two separate projects at two different times.
“It doesn’t make any sense to disturb the street twice,” he said. “We’re moving forward with the storm water improvements. What we’re trying to do now is get a consensus from the community that we want to move forward with everything else on that street so that we don’t have to come back later and tear it up again.”
With the newly raised road, they would create different transitions from the road to the sidewalks depending on the adjacent property.
City engineer Bruce Mowry said that the western side of South Beach is “ground zero” for the effects of global sea-level rise. “I’m not going to stop sea-level rise, but we are here to try to mitigate.” he said.
The impacts of climate change and rising sea levels are not an exclusive phenomena to Miami Beach, yet the aggressive adaptation initiatives being pursued – including the installation of storm water pump stations, raising roads, and increasing the urban forest – has put Miami Beach at the forefront of the international conversation on climate change and sea level rise.
The City of Miami Beach is a vocal member of the Southeast Florida Regional Climate Change Compact; a regional partnership among the municipalities of Miami-Dade, Broward, Monroe, and Palm Beach counties geared towards coordinating climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts.
In October of 2015, the Compact released updated sea level rise projections using data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the US Army Corps of Engineers, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Sea levels have risen 3 inches since only 1992. The sea level rise scenarios developed by this group estimates an increase in sea level of approximately 12 inches by 2030, up to 34 inches by 2060, and up to 81 inches by 2100.
Although this data shows a relatively small increase in short-term projections (2030), they show a remarkably significant increase in sea level rise throughout the medium and long-term scenarios (2060-2100).
The City of Miami Beach is developing a resiliency strategy to plan for the future of our urban island based on projected changes to our environment. These predictions are based on current greenhouse gas emissions and can only improve if the amount of emissions released into the environment are drastically reduced. The City of Miami Beach is taking steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions within government operations, and strongly encourages residents and visitors to do the same. The City is incentivizing the community to build more efficiently by requiring all new construction over 700 feet to achieve LEED Gold certification. Additionally, in the coming months, many more electric car charging stations are being installed in City parking lots and garages to encourage the ownership and use of electric vehicles.
