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Pinecrest’s draft 2025-26 budget calls for spending $4 million to build an eight-foot-wide shared use path (SUP) on the west side of Ludlam Rd.
It would become the second phase (after Kendall Drive) of a plan to introduce 11.2 miles of such paths to our community. Mayor Corradino has spoken in village council meetings about adding curbs to the road as part of the Ludlam project, increasing width. The draft budget also includes $800,000 for the design of SUPs on SW 62nd Ave. and SW 120th St., $1,234,000 to light the Kendall SUP and $350,000 to install a raised crosswalk on Kendall, bringing total SUP-related expenses next year alone to nearly $6.4 million.
Expensive shared use paths would be a major cause of driving up our proposed property tax rate from a millage of 2.35 to an unprecedented 3.86. In Pinecrest’s history, the millage rate has never been higher than 2.4. Keeping our tax rate unchanged would require eliminating $11.25 million from the draft budget, according to one councilmember.
Further, voters should know that construction of the Ludlam SUP would never provide the connectivity heading south promised by village website project map. Ludlam’s sidewalk between 133rd Terrace and SW 136th St. is frozen at a width of five feet due to road widening connected to recent traffic circle completion. Kimley-Horn’s contract calls for designing a Ludlam Road SUP that would extend only from SW 133rd Terrace to Kendall Drive. The $4 million expense does not include a northernmost leg between Kendall and Snapper Creek to be built later. It would require moving a condominium fence further west to allow space for the path and building a pedestrian bridge over the canal, according to the village manager.
Presently, a citizen group is promoting construction of a new shared use path and sidewalk grid throughout the community that would extend SUPs well beyond the current plan. It was developed by Dutch consultants hired by the village.
The Ludlam and other SUPs would require removing hundreds of legacy canopy trees and replacement with new, smaller ones. Look to the chaos on Kendall Drive as a preview of what to expect. Homeowners would face disruptive swale landscape removals as well as driveway visibility issues impacting safety. We could expect Ludlam drivers to speed on a wider roadway. The path would facilitate more carefree electric bike travel at allowable speeds of up to 28 mph. But most important, SUP construction would create a heavy tax burden for years into the future.
Back in 2015, village council abandoned plans to build an SUP on SW 104th St. from Pinecrest Elementary School to U.S. 1 when confronted with significant public opposition. The million dollar grant we had received to build it was turned over to the county, which used it for the SW 136th Street SUP in Palmetto Bay.
Will residents again rise to challenge SUPs?
Bob Ross served the Village of Pinecrest as a councilmember for eight years.
