As I rode my bike to synagogue this morning, I thought I felt a slight, very slight, coolness in the air. As I got to top of the drawbridge and looked at the sky, I knew it wasn’t a tactile hallucination: there’s a cold front going through!

That is a bonafide Autumn sky right there! In Miami, where every season is just a variation of Summer, any glimpse of an actual difference is greatly welcomed, especially by me as Autumn is my favorite season and I just don’t get to experience it practically at all.

The Sun Sentinel reported on the “cold” front, during which temps will go down to — get ready — 88 degrees in Miami! *sigh*

Oh well, at least the sky looked beautiful during my bike commute this morning, and I always appreciate that.

It started this morning with a status update on the Bike Miami page on Facebook:

Bike Miami Days Team: Working hard to bring Bike Miami Days back on Sunday, October 4th. That’s just around the corner… will you help us get the word out?

Cool! There’s been rides all summer, but we weren’t sure when the whole-day events would be back. Shortly thereafter, however, a blog post comes through the RSS feed from the Bike Miami Blog, being echoed almost immediately as a comment on the status update above (fourth comment down):

UPDATE: Friends, we apologize for the over-excitement. Bike Miami Days is seeking sponsors to cover the extensive costs associated with keeping this event FREE, FAMILY-FRIENDLY and FUN, all of which requires a great deal of services and financial support that we do not yet have. If you or your business would be able to sponsor the Set Up, Clean Up, Sound, Public Service Aides and Police or any other part of Bike Miami Days, please contact the Coordinator here. Thank you.

Baffled, I sent an email to the aforementioned coordinator, Kathryn Moore and after a short phone call she gave me the bad news: there’s just no money for a Bike Miami Days.

The October date was to be covered via private sponsorship, but the company in question seems to have pulled out, leaving the event still missing the close to $25,000 needed to hold the 6-hour event. This money, for the most part, pays for the City of Miami police officers present at the event, as well as other costs associated with closing a huge chunk of Downtown Miami.

The City of Miami just released also it’s proposed budget for the 2010 Fiscal Year, and try as I might, I cannot find any mention of Bike Miami in the future tense; it is mentioned a handful of times as part of the past year’s accomplishments, but nothing’s there about future iterations of the event. Add to this the fact that Bike Miami has been the brainchild of the Mayor Diaz administration, and that his term comes to an end in November, and it is easy to see how this community event could fall prey to the shifting political winds in Miami.

Plainly, this sucks. Here we are, just a couple of days ago celebrating the first victory of Miami 21, and now the event that is meant to foster the bikeable lifestyle Miami 21 seeks to facilitate is in danger of not happening. After coming from the dumps in the rankings of Bicycling Magazine’s Most Bikeable Cities two years ago to where they actually declare Miami a BikeTown less than a month ago, could it be that we’re headed for another nosedive?

Any private company/non-government organization/individual donor wants to sponsor part or all of Bike Miami Days, please come forward, please speak up.

In a (dare I say it?) historic moment for Miami, the City Commission, after an 8-hour session, voted 4-1 to in favor of Miami 21 (Commissioner Regalado was the sole “no” vote, surprise surprise).

The plan now needs to face a barrage of amendments and scrutiny from various groups as it embarks on its way to change from a 500-page document into a blueprint for new urbanism and sustainable city living. It then has another date with the City Commission for a second reading at a date yet to be determined.

I was bracing for the worst, jaded as I am by politics, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that the plan passed. I WANT to see Miami 21 be put into effect; we won’t go far into our future with things as they are right now. It’s proven that the current zoning code doesn’t work, so let’s give this one a try and who knows, maybe we will have done the right thing for us and those that come after.

To the rest of Miami-Dade, I hope you’re watching closely, cause we, the residents, will be expecting proactivity from you as well in the near future.

Back in August 6th, the ambitious and forward-looking plan known as Miami 21 was presented to the City of Miami Commissioners for a vote. It should have been a day of celebration, yet it turned into a bittersweet stalemate when one of the up-to-then supporters, Commissioner Joe Sanchez, voted “No” on the plan, achieving a 2-2 result (the fifth City Commissioner was undergoing surgery that day), citing weak “zoning laws litigation” reasons for his vote. Since a 2-2 vote does not actually mean a defeat, Miami 21 has a new chance to go before the City Commissioners, and that is happening tomorrow, September 4.

Residents of the City of Miami that support Miami 21 are urged to attend the public hearing at City Hall, starting at 10 AM. This is a case of “the more, the merrier,” and Mayor Manny Diaz wants you there, as he has made known via the Miami 21 Facebook group and other media.

Miami 21 presents a new zoning code known as form-based code which seeks a more organic separation of zones and encourages mixed-use spaces. It would be a great simplification on my part to give a layman’s interpretation of Miami 21 as a plan that seeks to create spaces that are people friendly and encourage walkability/human-powered transportation use instead of the blocky urban sprawl Miami (in general, not just the city) has tons of, and yet I would not be that far off the mark.

Miami 21 also represents a precedent for all of South Florida, arguably the most populated area of our state, as we move into the future; it is a plan to which other cities can look as they work on new urban designs for our congested living spaces. I know I would love to see Miami Beach follow a similar route to what Miami is doing on the other side of the causeway, for example.

Support Miami 21 tomorrow at City Hall, and if you’re not a City of Miami resident, spread the word about Miami 21 and its innovations towards a more livable city to everyone you know. Who knows which city will be the next to be inspired to follow suit.

You’ve no doubt by now noticed that the sites got a bit of a re-design and some things got changed around last week. We wanted to highlight two changes to make sure everyone knows what changed.

The first and biggest is COMMENTS! Registration is no longer required to post a comment on any post. Of course if you already have an account you can still login to ensure your comments are attributed to you, but those who don’t can now post a comment without any long term commitment. Also, on the right you can see some of the recent comments so you’ll always know what the active discussions are. This was the most requested thing we’ve heard from people since our last redesign and we’re excited to see where it leads.

The next change is also something that was heavily requested, and that is a change to the ADS on the sites. You’ll immediately notice fewer of them, but what might not be as obvious is those smaller square ones to the right are specific to this city only and are being sold for a flat rate for a period of time rather than a confusing CPM/traffic/network model. Depending on the city, these range from $7-$175 for a full week. If you purchase one, during that time your ad will be the only one in that spot and will show on every page. We set these up both to make it easier for smaller local businesses to get their ads on our site, and also to help us bring in ads that relate better to our local audiences. Also, keeping these sites online is expensive and every little bit helps.

There are a bunch of other things we changed but we’ll leave those to you to investigate and take advantage of. Hope you like it, and we look forward to seeing you in the comments!!

Love,
The folks at MBHQ