Written by Gabriela Henriquez Stoikow on November 2nd, 2021
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An offer to refuse a planned partial monorail connection between the mainland and Miami Beach failed last week at the Citizens’ Independent Transportation Trust just on May 6-5.
The failed application had asked the county and the transportation planning organization (TPO) to ensure that the Smart Plan’s beach corridor with six corridors is built differently in order to maximize passenger numbers.
The current destination is an Elevated Automated Rail Transit (Monorail) as the preferred connection between the mainland and the beach via the MacArthur Causeway. The transit mix, which was determined following the publication of a project development and environmental study in January 2020, includes an extended omni loop of the Metromover to Midtown and the Design District, a bay crossing via a new monorail, and a bus and tram across Washington Avenue to the Miami Beach Convention Center.
Last week’s meeting challenged this combination but ultimately turned down a call to request that the project “be developed in a way that maximizes passenger potential and cost effectiveness, by following one technology and route that one direct connection between Metrorail and Miami Beach without the “transfer required.”
The current plan cannot be linked without transfers, so the resolution would have asked the authorities to consider other options.
“I can tell you that this is not going to encourage anyone to use transit through our bay,” said Kevin Amézaga, executive director of the Miami Riders Alliance, of the monorail. “From a fiscal point of view, it makes no sense for transit drivers [and] more transfers don’t get people out of their cars and into transit. “
But Eulois Cleckley, director of transportation and public works for the county, defended the current mixed-mode plan as “the best opportunity to bring this mainland link between downtown Miami to the beach”.
Eileen Higgins, chairwoman of the county transportation committee, also defended the monorail alternative. She argued that the Smart Plan should be seen as an overall system and not as separate corridors.
“We need to look at every decision to see how it will affect the whole system, not how it will affect a corridor,” said Commissioner Higgins. “We’ve put together a 40-year horizon for what we can afford, and we’re adding these six corridors to all of this funding model so we don’t run out of money by building a perfect corridor and then not building another corridor.” will.”
The project received only one offer for Malaysian casino giant Genting and its partners to develop a monorail in a P3 deal with the county. “I keep coming back to the fact that we actually have a P3 partner willing to provide a connection that is LPA compliant [local public agency]”Said Mr. Cleckley.
If the county were to work with the private sector, no federal funding would be required, which would significantly cut the time it would take to complete the corridor, Ms. Higgins said. Raising federal funds to develop a project of this size could take five to eight years while the Federal Transit Agency (FTA) evaluates the project and allocates the funds later.
“The idea of taking a step back, going back to the TPO, starting over for an LPA, transferring it from a P3 to an FTA restart, is delaying transit on that particular corridor by maybe eight years, maybe 10 or 15 years. ” She said.
Robert Wolfarth, a member of the Transportation Trust, said not many companies want to invest in the Smart Plan, and the county should be lucky that a company is interested. “I’m very excited to hear that we may have the groundbreaking in about 18 months,” he said.
“I think that we should really move forward with what we are doing here,” said Mr. Wolfarth. “It’s not a perfect system, but it gets people to the beach and the mainland.”
“The reality is we have a great potential solution that will save our employees more than half an hour each way to and from their Miami Beach workplaces at an affordable cost,” said Ms. Higgins.
“The process was fair, we continued to evaluate this and made sure that taxpayers get the most out of the funds, too [to] allow these funds to be released to advance the other corridors that are so important to the county, ”said Mr Cleckley,“ so that is our position and we will continue to move forward. ”
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