Page 20 - Layout 1

RV0322.qxp_Layout 1 3/2/22 7:07 PM Page 18

Mayor’s Message

ver the last couple of months, the city of Fort Lauderdale has been receiving
tremendous support from neighborhood associations and business leaders in
Oour quest to stop a high-rise bridge from being through downtown.
The Florida Department of Transportation and Broward County continue to explore that
idea as a solution to how to expand commuter rail service between Miami and West
Palm Beach. They need to build a new crossing at the New River and the city has been
pushing them to build a tunnel rather than a bridge.
The bridge plans would be at least as tall as the 17th Street Causeway and could rise
as high as 80 feet in the air -- the equivalent to the Metromover bridge in downtown
Miami. And it would stretch 2.8 miles through downtown, 10 times the length of the
17th Street causeway, beginning its ascent in the south of Hardy Park, and descending
just south of Sunrise Boulevard.

Dean Trantalis
Mayor,
City of Fort Lauderdale
dtrantalis@fortlauderdale.gov

An elongated, high-rise bridge would have a seriously detrimental effect on the
City Hall, 8th Floor transformation of downtown into a vibrant urban center of offices, residences,
100 N Andrews Ave
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33311 commerce and entertainment. Many recent development and proposed projects sit hard
against the railroad right-of-way where the bridge would be placed, including the new
Society residential high-rise, the proposed Hines’ FATVillage project, the Kushners’ 300
W. Broward project and the proposed city-county government campus.
We need to be very careful in our approach to commuter rail because of the potential
consequences. Downtown Fort Lauderdale has nearly a $30 billion annual economic
impact, equivalent to hosting a Super Bowl every weekend. And its population is
Office Contact projected to grow another 45 percent by 2025.
Scott Wyman Many have been speaking out. Leann Barber of the Flagler Village Civic Association
Chief of Staff
Office of the Mayor wrote: “A bridge, based on the designs that we have seen, would be a blight on our
swyman@fortlauderdale.gov neighborhood and create a corridor of urban no man’s land.”
954-828-5314
Patrick Campbell of the Related Group wrote: “The lives of residents on either side of
the tracks will be made worse by the noise, and an elevated track will further separate
neighborhoods on the east from the neighborhoods on the west.”
A bridge would divide the city’s historic black community surrounding Sistrunk
Boulevard from downtown and the adjacent Flagler Village, re-enforcing the railroad
tracks as a barrier.
For some 20 years, the city has endeavored to have the economic success of downtown
and Flagler Village cross over to the Sistrunk area and has spent millions improving the
streetscape and investing in business projects. Beginning in the 1920s and throughout
CITY OF FORT LAUDERDALE the Jim Crow era, the train tracks were the boundary for segregation in Fort Lauderdale.
(cont. pg. 20)

18 rio vista civic association • www.riovistaonline.com