Ocean Drive will remain fully closed to cars for the next two years under a plan being recommended by city administrators.
The street was closed to cars in May 2020, as a way to help restaurants recover from the pandemic by adding seating.
Since that time, the street has remained fully pedestrianized.
Now, a county approval for the street closure is set to expire, and commissioners must decide on the next steps for the street.
The city administration is recommending commissioners approve Option 3a, which includes adding 600 planters and adding automatic arm gates to allow for emergency vehicles only, while keeping the street open only to pedestrians, bikes, and restaurant seating.
To address complaints from hotel guests over long walking distances with luggage, freebee shuttles would be permitted.
A permanent solution would then be constructed beginning in 2023, after plans are finalized by the end of this year.
However, architect Bernard Zyscovich, who is preparing the long-term plan, is recommending that cars should be permitted to resume driving on the street as part of the permanent solution, according to Miami New Times.
Commissioners are scheduled to decide on an interim solution at a meeting on June 23.
The recommended interim solution:
Ocean Drive looks great with no cars! Keep it that way forever. Hopefully the tourist demographics will change soon and the whole South Beach will get classy again.
The city should put a special tax on hotels to artificially increase the prices until better tourist start returning.
Raise the prices and a certain demographic will be priced out and stop coming They just go spend it!
Right!.. and then the hotels, bars, and clubs can start depending on the big spenders like you again.
They’d be so lucky!
^ Well, that’s proof that you really don’t giveashit about the place, you just hate the people you see there now, don’t you?
Everyone should hate the people that are there now, they are vandals, have no respect for Miami and its businesses. I love South Beach and I hate seeing them suffer. These people don’t even spend money, they just turn the streets into their own classless territory and disturb the paying costumers of South Beach. The gotta go!
they"ll still go the beach and hang out and get high on the side walks.
Not if you enforce the law!
Sadly, the City of Miami Beach and City of Miami set up this "brand" and that brand ties into Louis Vuitton, PINK sweatpants, Lambo’s, and loads of bling tied to the hip hop movies and movie scene. This is our new "brand" called Miami and South Beach (aka Miami Beach). Welcome to the 2020’s. We asked for it and we created it.
It’s a all about making money, anything else don’t mean a "hill of beans."
– Reality
South Beach was never classy
What.. you saying GAYS weren’t classy?
The least of…No Shade but they whole persona is based off the same demographic y’all not satisfied with now
What.. after putting Miami Beach on the map with movies like "The Bird Cage" you’re going to talk us like that?!!!
Well, return back to your Drug Wars and Cocaine Cowboys days and see if we care… miss me (hand flip).
Classy again? Not with Spirit Airlines coming to MIA in a big way, and bringing the BIG mammas with their BIG asses.
South Beach has always been a party town but yes it was classy in comparison to the mess it is right now. Make SoBe gay again!!
What happened to alll this inclusive talk. Remember Everyone should be able to enjoy Miami in their own way
Not if "their way" means disobeying the law, throwing garbage everywhere and turning the streets into a scene from some prison show.
I work in a restaurant on Ovean Drive and these animals stand right in front of them blasting loud music and disrupting our business. If, some decide to actually come dine in, you have to monitor them every second as they always try to leave without paying, last week it happened more than 5 times.
Boo hooo poor you
Yes poor me! I’ve been without work for a long time and now that I’m back at work, I have to do it for free because these ANIMALS are thieves and have no idea of how to live in society?!? Yes POOR ME!
You work for free?.. damn you’re a fool…
Clearly you can’t read. If costumers come in and don’t pay, yes we all work for free because we don’t have a money printing machine in the kitchen.
request credit card when ordering. done.
If fast food can ask for payment in advance, no one can complain.
Want something extra afterwards, we can adjust your total.
Hotels ask for payment in advance.
But get the "bars’ to stop blasting their music as well. I don’t need to hear their music 5 shops away.
Great, car’free is the way it should be!
With international wealthy tourists coming to South Beach soon, hopefully prices will go up for planes and hotels so that we can weave out some of the current "ghettomess".
Nice puns there
Lol the prices already up and nothing has changed, even if it goes higher people who want to visit Miami Beach will come NO MATTER THE PRICE ‼️…plus stimulus money spent
Yeah.. it reminds me of the free money they hand out to illegal immigrants once they get to this country.
unless you are wearing a feather in your headband ,you are an immigrant.
Nobody invited us here. We came on mayflower etc. Mayflower were illegal immigrants and everyone born from them are products of the same illegal immigrant pile.
Yep.. just go on back to "God’s waiting room."
lol…
what makes people think that only the trashy people that are in the area are from planes coming from somewhere else. I’ve seen Oakland Park, Ft Lauderdale, Miami, Winwood area etc. you have plenty of trashy people that don’t care about their neighborhood and trash it without needing to import people for that. Blame it on your own people not tourist.
Biscayne Blvd in downtown next
YES PLEASE!!!
I wouldn’t say no cars but it’s a highway right now, it should just be one lane for cars, one for buses and one for bikes/pedestrian
Green Biscayne basically. What happened to that plan?
They should at least do like at the Champs-Élysées in Paris where one Sunday a month it becomes car free. Biscayne Boulevard should do to start, at least!
Not the same. I’ve been to Paris twice and the "Champs-Élysées" is just one their tourist attractions, where as Miami Beach stretch for miles and miles.
The comparison was with Biscayne Blvd not South Beach♀️
If you want it nice,
Stop the cars, and limit the distance a business can produce their music.
several shops in a row all with speakers pointing to the street and each different.
I want to shop and eat, not dance to bar music.
Sometimes it is just nice to enjoy the area for the beauty it is…
No reason to have cars on Ocean Drive.. keep it for pedestrians, from 5th the the Loews hotel.
No Brainer.
They need to open at least one lane going north. Miami Beach without a beach front drive? When there’s a culture built around fast cars on Miami Beach smh.That’s what the ppl want.
That’s what YOU want
Exactly the point- narrative on South Beach needs to change. That culture around "fast cars" does not go with a tightly packed area with narrow streets with many pedestrians and bicyclists. Another thing city needs to do is ban single day motor bike rentals – no upside. Just a bunch of tourists routinely breaking traffic laws.
Every where can’t / shouldn’t be like Europe
It’s either like Europe or like Atlanta apparently. I prefer Europe for Miami.
let the sling shots line up and blast loud music all night and day…just a great idea!
