After years in limbo, local officials approved a design contract with Kimley-Horn and Associates to advance a linear park that would stretch across Miami-Dade County.
Miami-Dade County officials approved the $9.5 million contract with the North Carolina-based planning, engineering and design consulting firm for the 5.6-mile Ludlam Trail in the western half of the county. The project’s development and environment study was launched between 2018 and 2019 and completed in 2023.
Plans call for an 18-foot-wide shared-use bicycle and pedestrian trail, landscaped buffers, lighting, shade trees, seating areas, wayfinding signage, neighborhood and park connections and other amenities designed to create a safe, accessible and welcoming recreational corridor.
“This vote moves this long-envisioned project from planning to design and reflects our commitment to delivering infrastructure that serves generations to come with first class mobility, recreation and natural beauty,” said Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava in a press release.
Miami-Dade County has secured nearly $48 million for the trail, including a recent $1.25 million appropriation from the state of Florida. Design completion would strengthen the project’s chance of securing future transportation and infrastructure funding grants from state and federal programs, the county said in the release.
Running from SW 80th Street up to NW Seventh Street, the park would follow the path of a former Florida East Coast rail corridor that sits unused and fenced off. The FEC abandoned the segment in 2002, with the rails removed in the ensuing decade.
Small segments of the trail have already been built by private developers as part of three residential projects along major roadways. They are the MiLine Apartments at 6970 SW 40th St., Ludlam Trail Residences at 6955 SW 24 St. and Advenir at Ludlam Trail near SW Eighth Street.
Ludlam Trail would eventually link with the nearly complete Underline, a 10-mile linear park that runs underneath the elevated Metrorail and starts from the Miami River at the Brickell financial district down to the Dadeland South station.
While there are no details regarding the project timeline, Levine Cava said, “we’re no longer talking about if the Ludlam Trail is happening. We’re talking about how we’re going to deliver it."
