Expecting a Rickenbacker Causeway upgrade, Miami-Dade Mayor Danielle Levine Cava told commissioners last month that the administration is selecting a consultant for a causeway masterplan due early next year.
The masterplan, her memo said, is geared for causeway improvements “to work to aggressively prioritize pedestrians’ and cyclitis’ safety” along the only roadway that links Key Biscayne and the mainland.
Her memo also says that a separate study is to “analyze the options for the rehabilitation or replacement of the Bear Cut Bridge from Virginia Key to Key Biscayne” that “will be expedited to achieve the start of the construction as soon as possible.”
Miami Today reported earlier that commissioners were to act on a $2.2M contract with HNTB Corp. for annual physical inspections of the bridge and the entire causeway. The article noted that HNTB is to report on toll revenue capabilities, since tolls have been considered the funding source for a new Bear Cut Bridge.
As the study is being developed, the mayor told the commissioners, the county “will pursue Federal, State, and other grant opportunities to fund necessary improvements to the Bear Cut Bridge.”
The Bear Cut Bridge, on the causeway’s east end, was built in 1944 and upgraded under the administration of former Mayor Carlos Gimenez. Past studies pointed toward the need for a $90M bridge replacement. A focal point was a documented deterioration of the below-surface support pilings.
Privately financed causeway redevelopment was offered in a plan which would have replaced the Bear Cut Bridge and repaired the causeway, funded by tolls and revenues that the causeway would generate. At county urging, Plan Z was extended to take in the Venetian Causeway, then separated from the causeway, which is about to undergo its own upgrades, ultimately, the county last year rejected Plan Z.