It only took years of lobbying and three student deaths, but finally the University of Miami is getting a pedestrian bridge built over US 1 near its Coral Gables campus.
Since 1989, eight students have been hit by cars while trying to cross the busy three-lane highway. Three of those students died. The administration has been trying for years to get the county to build a pedestrian bridge, and the project has finally been approved.
According to the Miami Herald, the city of Coral Gables will cede control of a section of Mariposa Court to the county so Miami-Dade can construct the pedestrian bridge 17 feet above South Dixie Highway. It's the final step of a process that had to cut through layers of bureaucratic red tape and even needed federal approval.
State and federal sources will provide about $6 million for the bridge, while the county will assume all maintenance duties. Of course, because this is Coral Gables, the bridge will be tastefully styled.
If all goes well, the bridge could be ready by the spring of 2015.
The University of Miami requires all freshmen accepted from outside of Miami-Dade and Broward county to live on campus during their freshmen year, but starting 2008, it also banned those same freshmen from keeping cars on campus. So now more than ever, a sizable chunk of the population often has no other choice but to run errands on foot.
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