As a follow up to our story on the design flaws of the Circle, we asked the City of Miami Springs Police Department for the number of accidents that have happened on the Circle. The Police Department shared the total number of accidents on the Circle including those with or without injuries and hit and runs with or without injuries.
2020 Accidents on the Miami Springs Circle
The beginning of 2020 was a lot of fun. We had the SuperBowl in Miami. And it was my last memories of a time before COVID. And then COVID hit. Lockdowns. Remote work. Kids at home. Two weeks to stop the spread turned into a year of at home learning. …Oh, and the roads were completely empty.
In April of 2020 is when construction began on the Circle redesign and we permanently lost two lanes on the South Side of the Circle.
Despite the lockdowns and reduction in traffic, the Miami Springs Police Department still recorded 15 accidents on the Circle in 2020. That’s more than one accident per month.
2021 Accidents on the Miami Springs Circle
Traffic slowly increased increased in 2021 as more and more people returned to in-person working. By the fall of 2021, schools were finally back to nearly 100% in person learning. That said, some folks adjusted and continued to work from home even through today.
Nevertheless, accidents on the newly redesigned Circle nearly doubled over the prior year with 29 accidents reported by the Miami Springs Police Department in 2021. That’s a recorded accident every 13 days in 2021 on the Miami Springs Circle.
It’s no secret we’ve been critical of some of the aspects of this County redesign of the Circle. It has failed to address pedestrian access among other issues. But we reported this week on how bad design is leading to many close calls and a series of accidents. Read that report here. And the numbers back up what we knew anecdotally. There are design flaws on the Circle that lead to accidents every 13 days.
Video: Circle Invites Bad Driver Decisions…Creates Accidents
As we look at 2022, we can only expect accidents to climb further as traffic continues to climb.
Hopefully, we can get the County traffic engineers that designed this to come to a City Council Meeting and listen to what residents like and don’t like about the redesign. They also need to address the design problems that are leading to car accidents. The question is, who’s going to pay for it?
This is what happens when you hear “We are from the county, and we are here to help”
Perhaps since Miami Dade County owns Curtiss Parkway and the Circle, they can send their officers to handle the accidents that they created on their property.