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Neisen Kasdin, attorney, civic leader and former Miami Beach mayor and commissioner, discussed transit, development and great cities with Javier Betancourt, executive director of the Citizens’ Independent Transportation Trust on CITT’s video podcast, Mobility Matters, broadcast by Miami’s Community Newspapers.
“There are three things that are critical for the Greater Miami community: transit, housing and education. I believe transit is also a large part of the solution to the housing issue,” Kasdin said.
One of the key points Kasdin stressed is that people should not look at housing as an issue that says you have to live right where you work. If you have good accessible transportation and transit, you can live 15-20 miles out and get to your job at a reasonable cost.
“Transit is just an essential element to making great cities. People today complain — people always complain — about traffic. But at the end of the day there’s nothing that will do more to alleviate traffic than having better transit,” Kasdin said.
It’s particularly critical when you have a lot of people in the service industry who have a long way to go, he said. It’s unconscionable that they have the commutes that they have.
“Technical studies show that even though your concern is traffic, if you could take something as little as 10 percent of the cars off the road the change is dramatic,” Kasdin said. “I kind of almost judge a city as to whether I like it or not based on how walkable neighborhoods are.”
He praised recent developments, such as the Brickell City Center and development at Wynwood, that encourage walkability.
“I was drawn [to transit] based on my background and my interest to work on transformational projects. The first one was in Midtown Miami where we represented Diversified Realty, which developed an entire site where there was an abandoned rail yard.”
A frequent rider of Miami-Dade’s transit system, Kasdin stressed the need to expand Metromover to the Edgewater area and along the beach corridor, commonly known as Baylink.
“I’m a big Metromover user. It’s really easy for me to get around from walking the streets to either Downtown or the Brickell area. It’s quite easy. If Metromover went up to Midtown or the Design District, I probably would use that a lot, too.”
The Mobility Matters video podcast, streamed live every other Thursday, starting at 9 a.m., via: www.facebook.com/TransportationTrust, covers transit, transportation and related topics. All Mobility Matters programs can be viewed on demand at: www.youtube.com/@communitynewspapers1946.
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