Resilience Scanner

Transit Stations as Multi-Service Community Resilience Hubs

Solution Overview

Miami-Dade County has developed a specialized story map to analyze optimal locations for transit stations while reimagining these stations as community resilience hubs that offer multiple public services and provide civic spaces.[1][2][3] This approach represents a dual-purpose infrastructure strategy that integrates transportation planning with climate adaptation, enabling transit facilities to serve communities year-round, during disruptions, and throughout recovery periods.[2] The initiative addresses gaps in underserved areas by providing resources as determined by community needs.[2]

Technical Components

The implementation utilizes story mapping technology as a data visualization and communication tool to demonstrate resilience challenges and solutions.[1] Miami-Dade County collaborated with subject matter experts and GIS professionals to develop the mapping platform, which effectively demonstrates sea level rise impacts and showcases ongoing flood mitigation projects.[1] The second story map specifically analyzes transit station siting criteria while evaluating how these locations can be transformed into multi-functional resilience hubs.[1][2][3] The technical approach enables the identification of spaces to activate hubs and pods into a multi-layered system through collaborative spatial analysis.[2]

Implementation Details

The Atlantic Council's Climate Resilience Center leads the project, partnering with residents, neighbors, community leaders, and community-based organizations.[2] The strategy is co-created through collaborative engagements, a needs analysis, and a customized site integration plan.[2] Implementation focuses on identifying gaps and developing strategies to provide underserved areas with resources as determined by the community.[2] The approach is grounded in neighborhood culture and values through trust and support at all times, not just during disastrous events.[2] Local organizations and leaders collaborate to identify spaces that can be activated within the hub and pod network system.[2]

Benefits and Impacts

The Climate Resilience Center's Resilience Hub Network Strategy supports Miami-Dade County communities to become better prepared for future challenges while strengthening existing social infrastructure that is vital to communities.[2] The story mapping approach enables effective visualization and communication of resilience challenges with the community, demonstrating both current vulnerabilities and ongoing mitigation efforts.[1] The multi-layered hub system provides year-round community services, emergency support during disruptions, and sustained assistance throughout recovery periods.[2] The initiative addresses resource gaps in underserved areas through community-determined priorities.[2]

Climate Adaptation Relevance

The Southeast Florida Regional Climate Change Compact's projections show that by 2040, sea levels in Southeast Florida could rise by 10 to 17 inches, and by 2070, they could rise by 21 to 54 inches.[4] The dual-purpose transit station and resilience hub strategy directly addresses these flooding challenges by creating elevated, accessible community facilities that can serve as refuge points during climate disruptions while strengthening neighborhood-level adaptive capacity through year-round social infrastructure.[1][2]

Sources