School traffic comes back Thursday

University of Miami students living in Lakeside Village, Centennial Village and Eaton Residential College get exactly one parking option this year. Everyone parks in the Mahoney-Pearson Garage. Construction closes the Pavia/Levante Garage, the Albenga Garage and the White zone surface lots to resident student parking. That means longer walks and more competition for fewer spaces. Students who hold off-campus jobs or drive out often will feel it worst. The change lands the same week the rest of the city's school traffic returns. Anyone who lives near campus can guess how a squeezed garage plays out on the surrounding blocks.

City Manager Peter Iglesias plans to leave on Oct. 2. His resignation gave the city a little more than four months to find a replacement. That window is now more than halfway gone, and there is still no succession plan. Under two months remain to name someone before the job goes empty. The manager's office is where the daily decisions of a city like this actually get made, from budgets to who answers for a stalled project. A search this quiet, this late, usually means the choice gets made fast and with little public input.

For about 18 months, members of the Parking Advisory Board have criticized city decisions they say encourage overdevelopment and ignore the board's recommendations. At the board's Aug. 5 meeting, the frustration boiled over. Members asked out loud whether their volunteer service has any impact at all. Advisory boards are where residents get a formal say between elections. A board openly questioning its own purpose is the kind of thing that tends to show up later in a council race. Parking, development and traffic are one conversation in this city, and it just got testy in public.

Capture Coral Gables, the Coral Gables Museum's annual community photography contest, is open again. This year the museum asks photographers to interpret the city through the people, freedoms and civic ideals being examined as the country marks its 250th anniversary. That is a wide prompt, which is the point. A porch, a neighbor, a crosswalk at the right hour all fit inside it. Entries are accepted through 11:59 p.m. Monday. If your camera roll is already full of this place, you have a weekend to sort through it and pick the one that says something.

The Coral Gables Museum and the Allapattah CDC are putting on Little Santo Domingo Day next Saturday, Aug. 15, starting at 10 a.m. It runs as a Family Day, so bring the short people. Cross-neighborhood programming is not the museum's usual lane, and that is exactly the appeal. An Allapattah cultural tradition lands here for a morning, a few miles and a whole different city rhythm from home. If you need something earlier in the week, the museum's summer kids camp has a session on Wednesday, Aug. 12 at 9 a.m.

Gables Bike Tours rolls through Montgomery Botanical Center on Sunday, Aug. 16 at 10 a.m. The ride is billed as easy and family-friendly, which in August is the only kind anyone should agree to. Montgomery is a research center and garden right here in the city, known for its international collections of palms and cycads. Plenty of people drive past the place for years and never go in. A slow ride is a better introduction than a walk, because you cover ground without cooking. Go early, carry water, and let the kids set the pace.