It doesn’t take much research to learn why families move to and stay in the Village of Palmetto Bay. Palmetto Bay, the Village of Parks, has always prided itself as a welcoming, small town, where residents are able to escape the stresses of everyday life and enjoy their families along with beautiful parks, amazing schools, and a plethora of recreational opportunities. Kayaking, yoga, team sports, run clubs; the list of fun things to do is long.
As beautiful as our community is, there are opportunities for improvement. As I walked and drove the streets of our Village during the campaign listening to our residents, the one thing that resonated with me was people’s desire to maintain the fabric of our community; a village atmosphere that begets our sophisticated yet simple way of life.
To that end, the Village has launched Palmetto Bay’s Street by Street Initiative. This will be a Village-wide effort designed to update, beautify and improve deteriorating areas of our community. Working with the Manager and his staff, I will be visiting every block, every street, every park and public space in the Village to inventory and evaluate the streetscape conditions. As the saying goes, all that shimmers is not new. If we are to maintain our piece of paradise, we need to maintain what we have in addition to looking to the new. By evaluating streetscape conditions on a street by street and block by block level, our Village will maintain its fresh and pristine image, increasing property values and making Palmetto Bay an even more desirable place to live, work, learn, and play.
Leadership does not happen in a vacuum, on a Facebook page or in a blog. Leadership begins with listening and should be inclusive, responsive and respectful. I intend to continue engaging residents and meeting them where they are through “After Hours with Karyn” and “Saturdays in the Park” to discuss resident issues and concerns and hear their ideas. I am excited for the future and look forward to working closely with my colleagues on council, leaders of our neighboring municipalities, as well as Miami-Dade County and our Commissioners to address the challenges and manage the opportunities facing our community. I look forward to hearing from you and can be reached at kcunningham@palmettobay-fl.gov or by phone at 305-904-1805.
I live on 84th Avenue South of 168th Street and my wife, who is a teacher, has a 25 minute commute from our home to 168 Street in the morning from all the cut-through traffic. A bridge on 87th is the only way to make the traffic flow and not bottleneck at 168st as there will be an alternative to 82nd. It is just a matter of time till a resident gets seriously hurt or worse with that cut through traffic and the ever increasing homes south of cutler bay.
I agree the traffic through our neighborhood streets is atrocious, but connecting 87 Ave with a bridge would only exacerbate the existing backups. Where does everyone think the additional morning traffic will go when it crosses the bridge?
Every plan appears to only encourage additional traffic. In Miami, quality of life is a function of your traffic experience.
Bill Kestel is correct. You have to connect collector streets. Any road engineer will tell you that.Oh that right they already have but now the traffic is cutting thru residential streets and destroying the quality of life on these streets. I have lived all over the US but have never experienced a road grid like Palmetto Bays. Connect the grid !
Typical Political Hocus Pocus. Let’s beautiful the streets while totally ignoring the real problem hoping the Citizens will forget about the very dangerous Traffic problem in our front yards. Nothing like putting lipstick on a Pig. For those of you wondering, the New Mayor is just like the Old Mayor who was in denial about how to fix our traffic problems. It’s all about Vote Count to these Politicians, nothing more.
Mayor Cunningham states Palmetto Bay is a “welcoming small town where residents are able to escape the stresses of everyday life”. Well two decisions the Council have made have turned Palmetto Bay into a mess; i.e.; the “NO” vote to deny the County’s fully funded request to bridge 87th Avenue to get traffic to flow thru the Village rather than all within it and the second horrendous decision was to promote a Downtown Urban Village concept without the much needed mass transit to at least help it succeed. The Downtown Urban Village concept would have resulted in 5,661 apartment units and 1,500,000 square feet of commercial, all in a one square mile area, all without mass transit and without any viable traffic relief, an ongoing disaster which all Village residents are currently experiencing. There seems to be more interest in raising the Village’s tax base than there is in maintaining the “Village” atmosphere. No amount of political propaganda will deny reality.
Bridges will encourage even more traffic and gridlock in our already overburdened community as rapidly growing populations to the South of us generate ever greater numbers of cars trying to wind through our pleasant streets. It is a huge mistake to rely on an express bus system on the Metrorail right-of-way, people will not abandon their cars and start using buses. The County failed to conduct a comprehensive survey among Palmetto Bay, Cutler Bay and residents further south to actually find out how many people would use buses. Big mistake! Another expensive boondoggle. We were promised Metrorail expansion to the South and all we got out of the half penny transit tax was the empty circulator buses!
I agree with Ann Machado. You can go street to street & improve the esthetic look of VOPB. But with the traffic problems & the insane building of apartments here & south of the Village problems are only going to get so much worse. You cannot continue to band aid the streets with speed bumps & round abouts & not complete the grid with bridges. Your silence on this matter disturbs me. If you seriously want to address traffic you need to have Bill Kestel take over to fix the nightmare we are experiencing everyday. He’s full of knowledge & I can bet my house he will solve the problem.
I came for the village atmosphere but stayed because of the great schools and parks. Now, I am challenged by the rush hour traffic on Old Cutler Road. Don’t drive me out by overgrowth and development!