Miami is the fourth most dangerous place for pedestrians in the U.S. and Florida is the most dangerous state for cyclists. Meg Daly has an idea to help fix that, and it begins with building the infrastructure to support increased biking and walking throughout the city’s urban core.

Inspired by The High Line in New York and The 606 in Chicago, three years ago, Daly proposed building a 10-mile linear park and urban trail in the land below Miami’s Metrorail, appropriately named The Underline. The project has been gaining some real traction.

In a public-private partnership with support from Miami-Dade County departments of Parks, Recreation and Open Spaces, and Transit, the project is set to break ground in fall 2016. “This will be the fastest linear park and urban trail in the country that’s gone from inception to shovel in the ground ever,” said Meg Daly beaming with excitement.

So how did she do it? We sat down with Meg Daly to learn about her process and get some advice about how to make our own passion projects for the community a reality.

How was the idea for The Underline conceived?

Well, it all started when I had a bike accident 3 years ago. My daughter and I were bike riding. She accidentally clipped my front tire and I fell and broke both of my arms. I was working with a startup and I couldn’t drive, so my son, husband, and dad were driving me around all over the place. One day, I had to get to physical therapy, and I thought I could just take the Metrorail and walk the rest of the way under the train tracks. That that was in the summer, and though it was 9:30 a.m., it was not too hot because of the shade of the train tracks. I was walking and I thought, “I never realized there was so much space here.” And I thought we should turn in it into a public space.

What was the process of getting the idea off of the ground?

I had a lot of luck because my background was all sales and marketing — I’ve learned that when you’re excited and interested that you need to talk about it. So I did. I talked to a lot of people. The answer was that you need to get in touch with Miami-Dade County Parks. I met a woman named Maria Nardi who is the Chief of Planning and Research, Miami-Dade County Parks, Recreation, and Open Spaces. As you know, parks are grossly underfunded. They’re looking at a 10% increase in their budget for this year — yay! I said I have this crazy idea — and she said that’s not really that crazy because that’s a priority corridor for the Miami-Dade County Parks master plan. Because transit owns the land, we need to get to the transit department. So we did, we went to the transit department, who said, “We love the idea. Why don’t YOU go do it?”

What was the next step in turning it into an actual, tangible product?

It’s been a cool adventure of finding doors that open for you. You get people excited and championing [for you], so it’s not just me talking all the time, it’s someone else talking to someone else and that sort of viral noise gets you to an open door. That next open door was at the University of Miami School of Architecture. Since we had no money and we needed drawings. They took us on as a studio project. And it was a very transparent process, where public agencies came in and shared and the students visualized and conceived and faculty jumped in. Click here for the full article.