"This is really a stress test of this idea of The Shoreline." That is how Miami-Dade County Commissioner Raquel Regalado described the feasibility study at a Village workshop this spring. The Islander News report on that session credits her with planting the seed for the concept about a year earlier.
The test is now close to its result. The Village of Key Biscayne calendar lists a Council Workshop on "The Shoreline Concept" for Tuesday, October 27, from 6 to 8 p.m. Friends of the Underline CEO Eulois Cleckley, who is managing the project, said this year that the team should be "wrapping up this study by late fall."
The causeway redesign has mostly been discussed as a traffic story. Read the engineering details and two things stand out. The largest physical change would happen on the sand beside the road. And the date construction could begin depends less on the Village Council than on a separate County decision about Bear Cut Bridge.
Two roads where there is now one
The design team is Plusurbia Design, led by Juan Mullerat, together with HDR's Javier Manso and Friends of the Underline. Plusurbia's own summary calls the project a redesign of the Rickenbacker Causeway built around a split-level viaduct that separates fast traffic from pedestrians and cyclists. The spring reporting gives the corridor an estimated 28,000 daily commuters.
Here is how the two levels would divide that traffic:
| Upper viaduct | Lower roadway | |
|---|---|---|
| Who uses it | Through vehicles and fast bicycle peloton packs | Local traffic, plus pedestrians and cyclists on separated paths |
| Speed limit | 45 mph | 30 mph, four lanes |
| Where it runs | Ramps begin near the Rusty Pelican Marina entrance and end at the entrance to Bear Cut Bridge | Follows the existing roadway |
| What it reaches | Straight through to the island | Virginia Key, the rebuilt Miami Seaquarium, Miami Marine Stadium and MAST Academy, with roundabouts or signalized access points |
Some of the details are small and would show up every day. Vehicles would exit left to the lower road while pedestrians and bikes exit right, so the two streams stop crossing each other. Wide medians the team calls "refuge zones" would separate cyclists and students from cars, especially at MAST Academy. The Seaquarium entrance might be relocated. Manso also showed where MAST students could park and how much shorter their walk across to the school would be.
Cleckley has said the design also allows for Miami Marine Stadium and the former Seaquarium likely expanding their capacity. The lower road is being planned for more destination traffic than Virginia Key gets today.
The bigger change is on the beach
Lifting through traffic onto a viaduct frees up land that is now asphalt. According to the Islander News account of a virtual public meeting, the beach between the William Powell Bridge and the Seaquarium covers about 11 acres today. Mullerat's illustrations showed roughly 28 acres of proposed trail area. The same account reports that reclaiming asphalt would add about 160 percent more beach area, the figure that has followed the project since spring.
The amenities shown for that space would look like a linear park:
- Open space for food trucks
- Playgrounds and courts
- Kiosks and recreational rentals
- Bike repair stations and shelters
- Natural dunes, with multi-modal paths for walkers and cyclists modeled on The Underline
The comparison to The Underline is deliberate. Friends of the Underline manages both projects. When the April workshop took place, its 10-mile linear park running from the Brickell area toward Dadeland had just passed the halfway mark. Miami-Dade's Phase 3 page still lists 2026 as the expected completion year. Spring reporting said the two trails could connect, but nothing published so far confirms a physical link.
What the design cannot move
Three fixed limits shape where the viaduct can go, and none of them came up in the traffic discussion.
The petrified groves near Crandon Park are a strict "no-touch zone," which limits how far north the bridge structures can extend. The William Powell Bridge would stay as it is. And Manso's technical baseline work found a 102-inch sewer line running parallel to the causeway that cannot be relocated. Permitting would have to account for where the viaduct columns can stand around it.
Other choices are still open. HDR is modeling a concrete beam bridge because it costs less, though Manso said steel remains possible. Bike lane width on the lower road is still under discussion, partly so the design does not lose parking.
The William Powell Bridge is already getting its own work. The Key Biscayne Independent reported in March that a rehabilitation of the West and William Powell Bridges costing nearly $4.1 million was set to begin this spring, with weekday overnight closures and one lane open in each direction.
Why Bear Cut sets the clock
The most important line in the spring workshop report comes near the end of its bullet list. The Shoreline could start after Bear Cut Bridge is replaced, if that decision is finalized. The viaduct ends at Bear Cut, so its timing follows Bear Cut's.
That decision belongs to Miami-Dade County, not the Village. Here is the bridge's record, from the County's Bear Cut Bridge project page:
- 1944: Bear Cut Bridge is built.
- 1983: It is widened.
- 2014: It is rehabilitated with new beams that replace the original steel I-beams.
- 2022: An FDOT load rating report finds distress and corrosion in the beams installed in 1983 and recommends a 20-ton load limit.
- 2023: A repair project addresses those problems and avoids load restrictions.
- June 2024: FDOT gives the bridge a sufficiency rating of 37.3 out of 100, which signals structural deficiencies that may qualify it for replacement.
- October 2024: The County's Project Development and Environment study begins.
- March 2027: The study is expected to finish. Design starts only after that.
The County study is weighing repair-only, rehabilitation and replacement options. It is also looking at alternate alignments parallel to the existing bridge, wider shoulders and better bicycle and pedestrian facilities. Repair or rehabilitation would leave The Shoreline's starting condition unsettled. Replacement would answer it, but only after the County's own design phase.
So the Village study can wrap up this fall, and the most important variable will still be undecided until at least March 2027. Officials put a rough 10-year horizon on the project, counted from the concept's introduction last year. Regalado said a final timeline is not yet set because environmental factors and funding mechanisms are still unknown.
The money question is still open
Late last year the Village Council authorized up to $950,000 for a seven-step feasibility analysis of whether construction and funding could work. By the April workshop, two of the seven steps were done, including the technical baseline assessment. The economics firm Rebel Group had been brought in to study funding mechanisms and possible revenue once the project is finished.
No construction cost estimate has been published. During the council's funding discussion, Islander News reported that Councilman Ed London asked for a ballpark figure before approving the study. He used a $200 million project with $8 million to $9 million in annual payments as a hypothetical example, not as an estimate. He was the only vote against the study funding. Funding ideas raised in that discussion included layering several sources, private donors and a $165,000 fundraising request. No tolling plan or secured construction money was identified. Mayor Joe Rasco called it "a great project, one that our community is excited about."
"This is a fantastic opportunity to move cars and people efficiently."
Eulois Cleckley, CEO of Friends of the Underline
Where the public conversation stands
The most recent in-person session was a July 8 public open house at Gramps Getaway. It was billed as a chance to hear from the project's architects and engineers and give input on the Rickenbacker Corridor. No summary of what was presented or said there has been published. The Village has not posted an agenda for the October 27 workshop, so the October 27 session is the next scheduled public discussion of the concept. Its specific contents are still to be announced. Questions about the County's bridge study go to the address on its project page, [email protected].
Wolsen Real Estate follows the infrastructure decisions that shape life on Key Biscayne, from the Rickenbacker corridor to the County's Bear Cut timeline. If you would like to talk through how projects like The Shoreline fit into your plans on the island, Book an Appointment with our team.
