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Miami attorney Lee Marks took his usual 35-mile morning bicycle ride along the Rickenbacker Causeway into Key Biscayne and around Virginia Key on Monday, a ride he has taken for the better part of 37 years.

This time, however, he was a little more cautious.

ā€œYou bet,ā€ he said, a day after two bicyclists ā€“ Yaudys Vera, 49, and Ogniana Reyes, 46, a couple who together left behind three teens ā€“ were struck and killed by a Jeep not far from the toll plaza entrance on the William Powell Bridge.

The driver has reportedly received citations -- none of which were disclosed by Miami Police Department officials to the Islander News as of Monday evening -- but has not been charged with a crime.

Marks is all too familiar with fatalities and close calls on the causeway, cringing at his own experience with a riding partner.

ā€œRight at that precise location, a car was going inside of us ... it came within a foot of my handlebars,ā€ he said.

The area in question has green-painted bike lanes, but drivers can also turn into a parking lot toward a rocky beach or go under the bridge to turn around if they do not want to proceed toward Key Biscayne.

ā€œYes, itā€™s a dangerous intersection,ā€ he said, noting that when the causeway was built, there wasnā€™t as much interest in cycling ā€“ not until Lance Armstrong helped popularize the sport. And then, later, texting on cell phones while driving became an issue. ā€œNow, it's a recipe for disaster.ā€

Marks, 64, represented the family of Omar Otaola, a cyclist who was killed in 2006 by a speeding bread delivery truck at the base of Bear Cut Bridge. At that location now is a ā€œghost bikeā€ honoring the five cyclists killed since then by wayward drivers; five before Sundayā€™s accident took two more lives.

ā€œThereā€™s been so many accidents involving speeding vehicles, itā€™s crazy,ā€ said Marks, who once organized the Great Coconut Grove Cycling Race for five years. ā€œTimes have changed. Thereā€™s no way you can remove the number of cyclists. I used to be with the only group of riders Key Biscayne had in the mid-ā€™80s. Now, there are at least 25 organized groups with 25-30 riders in each.ā€

Plan Z proposals attempted to provide answers

Dr. Mickey Witte, program manager and co-founder of the non-profit group BikeSafe on the University of Miami Medical Center campus, said it felt ā€œlike someone sucker-punched me in the gutā€ when she heard the news of Sundayā€™s accident.

A cyclist, neuroscientist, lecturer, mother and former competitive triathlete, Witte has been a longtime proponent of adding safety measures to protect pedestrians and cyclists on the causeway ā€“ something the much-discussed Plan Z proposals have been advocating.

She feels dumbstruck after Miami-Dade County officials, with the urging of several Key Biscayne city leaders and residents, in December turned their back on the Plan Z Request for Proposal that detailed a multi-faceted plan to overhaul the Rickenbacker Causeway.

ā€œAs much as we kept saying itā€™s going to happen ... this is still processing,ā€ Dr. Witte said Monday afternoon from her balcony, overlooking the causeway from Brickell Bay.

ā€œI spoke on continuing the RFP process,ā€ she said. ā€œPlan Z was the front-runner all along. It had the private funding. It had the green light right there. But there were enough entities pushing back. They held a public hearing, and they brought up irrelevant components, and people got distracted. I think it was shady, in my opinion. Considering those of us in the advocacy stage were (involved in this) for several years, I found it very weird.ā€

Bernard Zyscovich, a casual cyclist and popular architect in the Miami area who has designed ā€œcomplete streetā€ plans for the safety of cyclists, scooters and pedestrians, told reporters he has been hit three times while on a bike, minor incidents usually involving cars leaving a driveway. Among his latest ideas was an elevated path- way across parts of Rickenbacker Causeway that likely would reduce potential accidents between vehicles and cyclists and pedestrians.

Monday afternoon, Zyscovich ā€“ hoping to savor a birthday vacation with his wife in the Caribbean - and Plan Z partner - Jack Kardys sent County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, commissioners and other key staff a three-page letter with many of the projects they deem necessary to make the causeway a resilient, safer structure, encouraging ā€œa comprehensive approach that includes bike and peds (pedestrians) improvements in the future Rickenbacker planning, design, and construction process.ā€

ā€œI said, point blank, in December, thereā€™s going to be more deaths, and now we have two more,ā€ Dr. Witte said. ā€œThat is blood on the hands of those people who postponed (making improvements to the causeway). This was my biggest fear, and now, six months later, two more people are getting buried, and for what?ā€

Witteā€™s cause for concern traces back to her recollections of another triathlete, Aaron Cohen, who was struck and killed on the causeway, in 2012, by a hit-and-run driver.

A year later, she led a community-minded grassroots coalition that led to the Aaron Cohen Life Protection Act, which was signed by then-Gov. Rick Scott to close a legal loophole in the case of hit-and-run drivers who flee and canā€™t be given a proper drug-alcohol test. Now, hit-and-run drivers who strike any object (or person) without a metal skeleton of a car will serve a minimum four-year sentence.

ā€œI saw me (in that scenario) and did not want to widow my husband ,like (Mr. Cohen) left his kids, who did not get to know their father,ā€™ she said.

UHealth BikeSafe Program

On Monday, she sent a Call To Action letter, ā€“ co-signed by Kurt Kramer of the UHealth BikeSafe Program and Tony Garcia, with Street Plans ā€“ asking Miami-Dade County commissioners to ā€œimmediately install physical, protected bike lane dividers along the entirety of Rickenbacker Causewayā€ and asking them to ā€œprovide real solutions that will fix the inherent safety problems of the Rickenbacker at presentā€ within 14 days.

The letter, which displays four types of recommended barrier designs, calls for commissioners to also ā€œcommit to a comprehensive, long-term plan to implement a permanent, ā€˜bicycle highwayā€™ facility throughout the entire Rickenbacker (Causeway) that provides equitable space for commuter riders.ā€

The letter goes on to read: ā€œThe two-pronged call to action is not only doable but necessary to prevent further lives lost.ā€

Coincidentally, President Joe Biden on Monday approved $5 billion for bike paths and speed cameras, taking into consideration that fatalities among pedestrians and cyclists have been rising faster than those within vehicles.

Miami consistently ranks among the most deadly cities in the U.S. for cyclists. In 2020, for example, the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles reported 756 bicycle accidents in Miami-Dade County, 697 of which resulted in injuries and 13 resulting in fatalities.

Slowing cars a better solution

ā€œThe No. 1 factor in all these fatalities is speed,ā€ said Marks, who prefers lowering the 45 mph speed on the causeway ā€“ especially in the vicinity of the toll plaza -- than to create barriers. ā€œThe 45 mph limit is not appropriate anymore; maybe 25-30 years ago, but not when you have 1,500 cyclists, and drivers on cell phones.

ā€œIf that car is going 30 mph, it would likely not have killed (the two riders Sunday). The degree of crush damage, and you can see it on the front of that Jeep, is the direct correlation of speed and accidents, or not paying attention, and cyclists are everywhere. Itā€™s a fact of life.ā€

Adopting the Plan Z Rickenbacker project obviously wouldnā€™t have changed much in so little time. But placing temporary fixes, at least, could have prevented these tragedies.

Key Biscayne Mayor Mike Davey was among the city leaders wanting to protect their ā€œdrivewayā€ -- the only ingress and egress for daily use or emergency evacuations -- and wanting the Village to have more input and become a key component to a decision that would ultimately affect the 2.8 million county residents and the 2 million annual visitors to the island.

ā€œThey alarmed Key Biscayne residents talking about ā€˜our driveway,ā€™ but you donā€™t need to go 55 mph on the driveway,ā€ said Marks, who often sees kids racing their cars to school during his morning rides. ā€œIt should be a place to slow down; itā€™s paradise and they need to treat it like that.ā€

Attorney Luis ā€œLuchoā€ de la Cruz, a former Key Biscayne Village Council member and mayoral candidate, and who now is on the Strategic Vision Board, also has been perturbed by the inaction by city, county and state leaders.

ā€œIā€™ve seen enough; itā€™s just ridiculous ... all of our political leaders, starting with state leaders, and Miami-Dade,ā€ he said. ā€œThe Village probably has the least amount of authority on this, but they need to push (the issue). We must separate the cyclists from the cars. How many people need to suffer before it happens again? This is not rocket science.ā€

According to de la Cruz, who on Monday sent an email to city and county leaders and police chiefs in the hopes some action is taken, said he was not in total agreement with the Plan Z Consortium proposal, but "the one good thing they addressed was the most important part -- we need to save people's lives. You need to be in your own lane," he said. "There is plenty of space to make their own bike lanes; the hardest part would be on the William Powell Bridge.

"I don't ride (a bike), but I ride in my car, and for 47 years, I've seen plenty of close calls and some really bad accidents. You just can't avoid it from happening (the way it is now). Zyscovich wants separation. He's not one of the peloton guys or one of the Tour de France guys. He's reasonable. He understands. Everyone understands.

"I hope they take this seriously. These are horrible tragedies. It's a shame on us if we don't do something about it."

In the meantime, as discussions and strategies are developed for the next steps regarding Rickenbacker improvements, county officials have moved forward with a look at how quickly Bear Cut Bridge -- one of the original top priorities, along with the safety of cyclists and pedestrians -- could be repaired or replaced.

"The design of that causeway looks like a race car drag strip," Dr. Witte said, "not like a linear park that it's (supposed to be treated as). Cyclists, runners, tourists, walkers, they're being put at risk. We're publicly screaming from the rooftops to call for action. Now, two more deaths, for what? And we're still fighting for a safer causeway. This is insane.

"How many more people have to die? How many more names are going to be added to that ghost bike?" she asked. "We are providing them with real, tangible solutions, and it's mind-boggling, frustrating that we are burying two more people."

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