Editor’s note: This story is part of Governing’s ongoing Q&A series “In the Weeds.” The series features experts whose knowledge can provide new insights and solutions for state and local government officials across the country. Have an expert you think should be featured? Email Web Editor Natalie Delgadillo at ndelgadillo@governing.com.In Brief:
- The Underline, envisioned as both transportation infrastructure and a recreational amenity, is expected to be complete next year.
- The project has been in development for more than a decade.
- Miami-Dade County’s transportation chief recently left to lead Friends of the Underline, a nonprofit group supporting the effort.
For the last decade, Miami-Dade County has been working to turn a 10-mile bike path beneath a Metrorail track into a linear park. The project is part of a new generation of linear parks that have been started or revived in American cities during the last few decades. The Underline is partly inspired by the High Line in New York — and partly designed by the same landscape architecture firm that worked on that project, Field Operations. It shares some of the same features, like public-private partnerships and the backing of a “Friends Of” nonprofit group that strives to provide most of the capital and operating budget for the effort. Essentially a multi-use path studded with parks, recreational space, playgrounds, plantings and stormwater infrastructure, the Underline is expected to be complete next year.
Recently, Friends of the Underline hired Eulois Cleckley, the former director of Miami-Dade County’s Department of Transportation and Public Works, as its new CEO. Cleckley was responsible for building and operating transportation and transit infrastructure for the county — including some aspects of the Underline project itself. He previously held transportation positions in Denver, Houston, and Washington, D.C., and served as president of the Conference of Minority Transportation Officials. Cleckley recently spoke with Governing about multimodal transportation infrastructure, what the Underline has learned from other linear parks, and building financial support for the construction and maintenance of the project. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Governing: What was the appeal of taking on this role with the Underline? How does it intersect with the transportation work you were doing prior to this?
Eulois Cleckley: I consider myself a leader in the transportation space. My whole career has been about developing and building and implementing projects to make people’s lives better in metropolitan areas and cities. From the very inception, from when I came down on a visit to Miami before I took the role with the county, one of the very first projects I saw was the Underline, which I wasn’t familiar with coming from Denver. I was blown away by what I saw, and that was just the half-mile segment that was open in Brickell. What I saw was the best in city building, where you are building out spaces that not only provide great mobility options for people, but it’s a space that can be activated and be an amenity that people can use in their everyday lives. I took the job with the county, and my department at the time was the one actually building some of the phases of the Underline when the opportunity with Friends of the Underline became available to me. It allows me to take my expertise and experience and help this project to become something that is first class and a global destination for visitors and residents to enjoy. To me it was a no-brainer. I tell people that there are over 2,000 transit agencies in the U.S. and there’s only one Underline. To be a part of that was really a great honor.
What do you think people in Miami should be most excited about? What goals are you trying to accomplish with this project and what public benefits do you expect to deliver?
There’s several goals. First and foremost, the fact that we’re building and redeveloping the unutilized space underneath an existing rail corridor really lends itself to developing out a full-fledged multimodal corridor. There’s very few of these types of corridors where you have mass transit, you have walking and bike paths for 10 miles. That’s what we’re going to have.
The High Line in New York is a great project, but it’s a shorter distance, about a mile and a half. The BeltLine in Atlanta is a fantastic project but they’re still working on the transit component. When we are done in 2026 with all of the phases of the project, we’ll be a fully comprehensive multimodal corridor that people can walk, bike and take transit and experience the Underline as a whole. Also, because we have 112,000 residents within half a mile and nearly 20,000 businesses, this is a true community asset.
Courtesy Friends of the Underline
It’s also important to note that yes, we are building out a safe walk and bike path, but this is an economic development project. Businesses have the opportunity to consider the Underline as a venue for food or beverage or other commerce. We’re looking at opportunities to provide great entertainment and great programming for people to enjoy this place.
The High Line obviously was a very successful project but it accelerated gentrification in the area where it was built. The BeltLine has been wrapped up in similar debates about gentrification but also questions about what its overall use is, what kind of transit infrastructure to put there and things like that. What have you learned from other big linear park projects?
For both the High Line and the BeltLine, although they might have their challenges, every project has its challenges. But there’s overwhelming support and positivity for both of those projects and the same thing here for the Underline. Our takeaways from those projects are, one, the way you can galvanize a community and provide support to not only appreciate the project, with respect to the High Line, but also to support it financially and keep it as something that is a sustainable project. Those approaches and methods to clearly articulate the benefit of that particular project really lend themselves to having a strong, long-term public-private partnership. That’s something we’re trying to build here for the Underline.
The BeltLine is a fantastic project. It’s interesting that the reuse of that corridor has generated a considerable amount of developments, but if you talk to residents or individuals about the Atlanta BeltLine they consider that whole project as a neighborhood in itself. There’s an extreme focus on ensuring that there’s community involvement and community engagement at every step of the way for the BeltLine project. I know they’ve also figured out ways to provide affordable housing along the BeltLine as well as integrating small businesses and minority-owned businesses and the like into a lot of their programming.
Even though there might be challenges that exist when you’re developing these spaces, ultimately the communities deserve it. Transportation infrastructure is more than just concrete and steel. As the former USDOT Secretary Rodney Slater said one time, it’s about building a community.
There’s been a lot of debate and discussion around the future of transit and transportation infrastructure in Miami generally. How do you see the Underline intersecting with that discussion?
Miami and all of South Florida is a place that people want to move to. We have an influx of residents and businesses. We need to ensure we’re building out the infrastructure to be able to support that increase. From my perspective, the Underline feeds right into the type of infrastructure that will be required now and in the future to be able to move people in a multitude of ways, outside of just relying on their individual cars. When we are fully built out, we anticipate having over 8,000 visitors daily to the Underline. Those individuals are going to be moving about the county and the three municipalities that the Underline traverses without needing a car. Whether it’s walking, biking or taking transit, it’s a project that encourages that type of multimodal use. That’s the future of our American cities. Every city is going to be figuring out ways to help support and build these types of multimodal projects and at the same time connect communities. I think the Underline is the pre-eminent project that demonstrates that.
What are the biggest components that you still have to finish?
The entire footprint of the Underline is 10 miles, 120 acres. We’ve completed two of the three phases, and have finished about three miles. So the last phase is seven miles of walking and bike trails and amenity spaces. Just to give you an example of what we’re building, we plan to have two amphitheaters where folks can be entertained and have outdoor learning spaces. We’ll be installing more microforests in phase 3, as well as more stormwater infrastructure, bioswales and the like. We’re building out space that can be used for a farmers market and other commerce. We’re building out a full basketball court, a full set of pickleball courts and other amenities. And again we’re providing those solid connections to our transit system and making the intersections along the corridor safer for biking and walking.
What have been the biggest challenges of getting it to this point and what are the biggest remaining challenges?
Ensuring that as a part of the planning and design process that we’re including all of the necessary stakeholders, although I think that’s more an opportunity. Every time this project has been presented to the public and the surrounding neighborhoods, everybody’s been extremely supportive.
Lastly, just ensuring that we build out a first-class asset that people are excited to support and that we can continue to have the right financial support long term is always going to be at the forefront of our responsibility. We feel very blessed to have that funding in place from a variety of different sources — federal, state and municipal, but also the private investment has been critical to our success as well. We need to make sure we continue to have that healthy funding mix moving forward.
