Miami Lakes Town Councilmembers gave their final approval for an ordinance to supplant the town’s ineffective traditional traffic concurrency system with a mobility fee based on the projected number of daily trips on a roadway for future building projects.
At last week’s special meeting, lawmakers unanimously gave town staff the green light to implement a new traffic concurrency system which is consistent with the changes lawmakers and residents called for in the town’s new Strategic Plan.
Brandon Schaad, Miami Lakes’ Planning & Zoning director, said the new ordinance is fair and a more effective system to pay for alternative modes of travel to improve movement throughout the 6.5 square-mile town, and help offset mitigation costs for the town over the next 15 years.
He said the new mobility fee could generate about $12 million by 2031.
Traffic concurrency is required by the state in which roadway capacity must keep up with development of residential and commercial facilities, or building plans must wait until they do so.
The town’s old system mainly addressed roadway capacity and building infrastructure to accommodate developments, and the developer would pay a lot of money for a traffic study, and for Miami Lakes to review it to make sure the homes or buildings don’t cause an adverse impact on the roads.
The process was too time consuming and expensive for both parties, where the town incurred a debt in mitigation costs that depended on the roads which were impacted and how much capacity remains on them, Schaad said.
Since Miami Lakes is not entitled to transportation impact fees, which belongs to the county, the town relies on PTP and gas tax money that only covered half of the mitigation costs for development projects.
“The plan we are looking at, which is 40 items we are familiar with, is a $20 million cost to the town,” Town Manager Alex Rey said. “The PTP and gas tax money only covers half of the plan, and the town will have a deficit of $10 million over the $15 years. The new mobility fee replaces that amount.”
Schaad indicated the old system fell way short of fixing the town’s transportation plight.
“I have worked for the town for five years and the old system has done little to help our transportation problem,” Schaad said. “We are proposing to replace it with a mobility fee based on daily trips on a roadway to determine the capacity and improvements need to meet concurrency.”
Rey said: “Providing roadway capacity has not worked.”
In 2011, the Florida Legislature allowed municipalities to replace the traditional concurrency with more innovative solutions based on growth of population and the addition of vehicles on the roadways.
Miami Lakes’ new traffic concurrency system allows the town to apply a mobility fee for developers based on the number of daily trips on the roads and use the money to upgrade transportation and movement for pedestrians and bike riders as well.
Rey said the old system only addressed the capacity of the roadways to handle cars but never considered other modes of transportation such as walking, bike riding, crosswalks and pedestrian signals.
“The old system was to improve capacity,” Rey said. “The new one is a broader scheme to move more people. We are not focusing on moving vehicles, we’re focusing on moving people.”
Under the new system, Rey said Miami Lakes can impose a reasonable amount for the daily trips for residential, office, commercial and industrial developments based on a formula that includes a 10 percent of redevelopment capacity and the resulting levels of increased development by land use type and associated increases in daily trips.
The projected increase in daily person-trips (66,832) results in a cost per daily trip of $160.
At the special meeting, council members approved a resolution to implement the mobility fee formula.
Rey said the town can use the mobility fee to add two lanes in each direction along Miami Lakes Drive, the town’s most clogged up road during peak hours, by eradicating the median in the swale area to improve mobility.
The town can reduce the mobility fee for developers through actions that will mitigate transportation impact, such as designs for improvements and, for commercial development, off-peak commuting times and encouragement of alternative means of transportation.
Residents who have plans to renovate their homes or driveways are exempt from the mobility fee, Rey said.
For years, Miami Lakes residents have been reeling from the traffic congestion on the town’s roads during peak hours in the mornings and evenings, as motorists are stuck in gridlock for 30 minutes.
For the roads that went from a “D” to an “F” for traffic, Schaad said the new mobility system gives Miami Lakes more ability to target improvements for those streets, such as more completed streets, bike lanes and more traffic turn lanes to help reduce gridlock.
“We need to create a new mobility system to get to those roads,” he said.