The prospect of riding a bike in Miami is somewhere between maddening and dangerous. It’s the hot weather. It’s the rainy summer afternoons. It’s the dangerous roads. Yet, many Miamians do it. Some have no choice. Others do it out of a desire to leave a smaller carbon footprint.

The most recent National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports have Florida at the top of the list f for cyclist deaths in traffic accidents. It’s at 5.7 cyclists per million residents. That far exceeds the next most dangerous state, Louisiana. Biking in this county can be a risk, let alone giving up the advantage of a couple of tons of steel to protect you in order to ride on two wheels.

Anyone who does ride their bike anywhere in the county is likely thinking, ‘you ain’t kidding.’

In many parts of the city there just aren’t any lanes for cyclists and pedestrians; not without a major reconstruction of the existing roadways. What if there were miles of open trails just along the road, at a safe distance, not only for cyclists and pedestrians, but for parks and gathering places?

That was the question Meg Daly, a born and raised Miamian, asked herself when she was forced to walk to a doctor’s appointment. She couldn’t drive because she had broken both arms in an accident. That’s when she came up with the idea that became the Underline. Sometimes what seems like a disaster may actually become an opportunity.

Click here to read the article and hear the interview.