The recreational path known as the Miami Underline grew by 2.1 miles (3.4 km) on April 24.1
Map showing the Miami Underline trail as well as Metrorail, the Metromover, and non-Underline pedestrian facilities in central Miami. The nominal scale of the map is 1:30,000. That’s the scale it would have if printed on an 11-x-17-inch sheet of paper. The base data here come mostly from the Geofabrik version of OpenStreetMap. They have been modified substantially. The map is clickable and downloadable, but note that this site’s host server does not allow images to be stored at their original resolution, and, if you zoom in too far, the image will be blurred.
The Miami Underline, when finished, will run along Miami’s (mostly) elevated railroad, Metrorail, between Brickell, just south of downtown Miami, and South Dadeland, a suburb almost exactly 10 miles (16 km) to the south. There is a real need in Miami for a facility like this—Miami may have fewer recreational trails than any U.S. urban area of its size. The obvious places to build such paths—along the Bayfront and the Miami River—are largely occupied by private developments, and Miami is not the kind of city where governments are going to force property owners to cede land to a recreational trail. There are a few places along the Bayfront and the Miami River where public access is possible, and there are paths in some such places—chiefly near downtown Miami—but they are short. Miami also lacks any major public park (like Central, Lincoln, Golden Gate, or Forest Parks) where recreational trails could be inserted. There is quite a substantial trail in Miami Beach that continues into Miami Beach’s northern neighbors, Surfside and Bal Harbour, but Miami Beach is not Miami. The Miami Underline’s route was just about the only place where a sizable trail could be built. It’s not, however, ideal. I walked along the complete alignment in 2022, and, as I reported then, the busy adjacent roadways (especially U.S. 1, the South Dixie Highway), the heavily trafficked cross streets, and the noisy elevated railway overhead are all potential problems. Hardly anyone was using the M-Path, a simple trail along the route that was established when Metrorail was built in the 1980s.
I explored the added segment when I was in Miami last week. It starts impressively with the hard-to-photograph but substantial Hammock Playground, just southwest of Southwest 15th Road. Advocates of the Underline promised a path surrounded by native vegetation, and the playground sits right next to Simpson Park, a remnant tropical forest.
The Hammock Playground along the Underline.
The path’s next six-tenths of a mile (1 km) run between the lightly trafficked Southwest First Avenue and Metrorail, which, in this stretch, sits mostly at ground level behind a high wall.
The shared northernmost stretch of the newly added Underline segment.
Southwest of there, the path crosses a couple of roads. It solves the crossing problem to a large extent by providing, first, well-marked and vividly painted crosswalks and, second, a button that activates flashing yellow lights. It didn’t look as though most users—and especially not cyclists—were bothering with the button, but these crossings, which are pretty open, did not seem unsafe.
Crossing Southwest 26th Road.
Southwest of there. the path has separate lanes for cyclists and pedestrians. Pedestrians are supposed to use the right-of-way furthest from the parallel highway, but not all users were respecting the rules.
Runner on the Underline trail. The photo was taken from the pedestrian bridge over the South Dixie Highway just north of the Vizcaya station. The person running is actually on the bicycle (rather than the pedestrian) lane.
Southwest of Vizcaya Station and just about all the way to Dadeland, the planned route sits right next to South Dixie Highway, a very busy road that’s a continuation of both Interstate 95 and a major arterial, Brickell Avenue. The new segment for the moment only runs approximately two-thirds of a mile (1.1 km) beyond Vizcaya, but that’s enough to get a sense of what the Underline’s builders are planning. Cyclists and pedestrians are separated here, and some new native vegetation has been planted, but it hasn’t had a chance to grow much yet, and the trail feels very open to the South Dixie Highway. There are two street crossings where trail users are expected to obey a traffic light that also allows turns off South Dixie Highway. Southbound drivers who want to make a right turn are warned about users on the Underline, but Metrorail columns prevent their actually seeing the pedestrians until they’re turning. I did not feel very safe at these crossings.
Sign on the South Dixie Highway that’s supposed to ensure pedestrian/cyclist safety at a crossing.
The Underline now ends just north of Coconut Grove station, approximately 7.3 miles (11.8 km) north of South Dadeland. Construction continues. It’s hoped that the full trail will open by the end of 2025.
I was impressed at how many more users the new segment of the Underline has than I saw on the old M-Path. But I wouldn’t say that it was really busy. When I stopped to take photos, I sometimes had to wait quite a while to get a person in the picture. The Underline’s builders, however, expect that the trail will become busier as it gets longer and becomes better known.
There are a few other elevated railways that pass over underused land in the United States that either now have or could have a recreational trail. For example, there’s been a modestly used trail under the BART tracks in El Cerrito since 1973. The Red and Purple lines now being reconstructed in northern Uptown and southern Edgewater in Chicago could also acquire a recreational trail. Because of the street-crossing problem, none of these trails is ideal, but they do represent a distinct way to take advantage of an awkward land-use problem.
- I’d last visited and written about the Underline in 2022.