Is Ludlam Trail ‘shovel-ready’? Check the timeline, design and millions in cost

Real Estate Newsletter admin October 15, 2026 0 Comments

Is Ludlam Trail ‘shovel-ready’? Check the timeline, design and millions in cost

Long-stalled plans to replace an abandoned railway with a recreation path are advancing after a multimillion-dollar infusion for construction.

Ludlam Trail, a 5.6-mile path for cyclists and pedestrians, will be carved out of a former corridor for the Florida East Coast Railway. But the Miami-Dade project is no stranger to delays.

First, there was the approval of the project in 2015 and the acquisition of the land for $25 million in 2018. Neither milestone saw construction signs go up along the path — which runs from Northwest Seventh Street in Flagami to Southwest 80th Street — in the months that followed.

A ceremonial “groundbreaking” in 2021 was also shrouded in silence, with trail advocates saying leaders failed to explain why the project was taking so long.

Nearly two decades later, the trail is now seeing its first significant moves into the Miami-Dade County park system since its conception in the early 2000s.

“We were able to finally come up with a plan where we could design the entire plan and assemble enough funding to build out a significant portion,” Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava told a gathering of more than 200 residents at a community meeting on Oct. 5.

“Government should keep its promises,” Levine Cava said. “Sometimes it takes a while, but I’m here to tell you we’re on our way to keeping this promise.”

Timeline and construction start

If you’re a cyclist or pedestrian looking forward to hitting Ludlam Trail, county park leaders say to mark this date in your calendars — early 2028. That’s not when the trail will open, but when construction starts, according to consultants at Kimley-Horn, the civic engineering giant that won a bid in December to design the linear park.

Designs were being drawn up as of August and are expected to be completed by early next year, with permitting and sourcing for materials, equipment and labor scheduled for February.

The trail will be built in three stages, with a 1.6 mile chunk — about 28% of the path — in the middle of the trail. It’ll run from Coral Way to Southwest 48th Street, and will be bookended by two bridges built at each street.

The county will start with the segment because “it’s the longest stretch of the trail that we can get for the amount of money that we have secured,” said Miami-Dade parks director Christina White.

It’s also a community hub, running along the 65-acre A.D. “Doug” Barnes Park, two bridges at Coral Way and Bird Road, a canal crossing in Coral Gables. The section is sandwiched between two “development nodes” buzzing with residential and commercial activity, according to consultant Kimley-Horn.

The county hasn’t said which section comes next, but recent multimillion-dollar funding hints at the northmost part of the trail.

Earlier in October, the Miami City Commission approved $5 million toward the “design and construction of Ludlam Trail segments located within the City of Miami.” The mile-long section spans the project’s northern end near Northwest Seventh Street through a bridge planned for the trail’s intersection at Southwest Eighth Street.

Starting in 2031, the city will give $1 million a year to the project for five consecutive years from available funds in the city’s operating budget or strategic plan, proposed by Commissioner Ralph Rosado at an Oct. 8 commission meeting. But if Miami can also swing funding for the remaining mile just south of its city limits, the county will prioritize building the northmost phase next, White told the Miami Herald on Oct. 14.

The money trail and park features

Despite the infusions, Ludlam Trail still has $107 million to go for the finish line. The preliminary cost assessment for the entire design and construction is $155 million, White said, though that number can change.

She said the county has already spent $29 million on acquiring land, required environmental evaluations and “pre-development support,” and has secured about $48 million for the linear park’s blueprints and the build-out of the first phase. Dollars that Miami-Dade is counting on include money from the county, neighboring cities and the state.

What will you get for all these millions?

The 5.6 miles of cycling and walking paths will have plenty of trees and shrubbery, as well as lighting, maps and route markers, and trail surfacing.

Sprinkled throughout will be 15 crossings and four pedestrian bridges at the intersections of Flagler Street, Eighth Street, Coral Way and Bird Road.

What you won’t find are “bells and whistles” such as exercise equipment or benches, according to Miami-Dade Commissioner Natalie Milian Orbis of District 6, where the majority of the trail falls.

“We will make it attractive, we will beautify it,” she said. But “this is not The Underline. It’s a different project. It’s a trail that is intended to connect the community, not attract activity that isn’t supposed to be there.”

The main goal is to enhance regional interconnectivity as part of the Miami Loop, a series of nearly finished or planned cycling and walking trails that includes The Underline — a 10-mile cyclist and pedestrian path that runs under Metrorail — the Ludlam Trail, the Miami River Greenway and the Graham Trail.

The planned loop — which has been in the works since 2015 — will form a continuous circuit around Miami-Dade and connect about 223 miles of walking and bike trails.

An oversight and coordination process was approved last September, but the loop could take years to complete due to its scale.

Regardless, Miami-Dade says the Ludlam Trail will be seen to its end.

“We’re not talking about if it will happen. It will happen,” Mayor Levine Cava said earlier this month. “We’re just talking about how we’re going to deliver it. I have two more years left as your mayor. I want to make sure that before I leave, all of this is shovel-ready.”