How Miami-Dade County plans to expand its transit system

During the primary elections, close to 80% of voters said that they wanted Miami-Dade County to have a rapid mass transit system.

But how will the county make that happen? And what plans are already in the works to make public transportation more seamless and accessible?

Currently in Miami-Dade County there are 23 Metrorail Stations. The entire system stretches almost 25 miles.

But the big majority of residents in the county on August 20^th voted ‘yes’ to expand our Metrorail and metro movers.

Oliver Gilbert, chairman of the Miami-Dade County Commission, considers the results as a mandate even if it was a non-binding straw poll.

Gilbert has been championing for the current system to be expanded and says conversations have already happened. “We’ve already been working on it. We have been talking to FDOT about the north corridor. We are talking to the Federal government about the east corridor. We’ve always been working on it.”

But how so?

In 2002, voters approved a one-half percent local surtax which is supposed to go towards improving all of these rapid transit corridors within the county.

Fast forward to 2016, when the Miami-Dade’s Transportation Planning Organization proposed and adopted what’s known as the Strategic Miami Area Rapid Transit Plan or SMART Plan.

Today, it’s being implemented and is now known as the SMART Program.

“We can do all these projects, work on them all at the same time, but they are going to go at different paces. But at least they are all moving forward. And that’s what you see happening,” said Jimmy Morales, Chief Operating Officer for Miami-Dade County.

He says the goal is to provide mass transit options on the Metrorail to seven corridors. It would give transportation options for as far south as Florida City, to as north as Hard Rock Stadium. The corridors will also run east to west on Kendall Drive and Flagler Street.

“We think transportation is not only critical to our economy, moving people and goods around, but also affordability. People have options. And I think that can make their quality of life better,” said Morales.

WHAT IS THE TIMELINE

The ideas are great, and it’s something voters obviously want.

But when are we going to get it?

According to Morales, the south corridor is almost complete and is set to be finished in late 2025. The northeast corridor is expected to be completed around 2032, and the north corridor will be done sometime in the 2030’s.

Now you might be thinking that’s a long time. But there’s multiple reasons as to why.

To make one corridor a possibility, there’s a lot of planning into finding where public transit needs to be placed, and why it needs to be placed in a select area. That process involves research, surveys, and door knocks.

Then once you’ve selected the area you’re focusing on, comes the engineering phase.

How are you going to design it? What technology will it have? How will you position the routes and deal with infrastructure?

There are also environmental studies that evaluate those impacts.

Morales says a challenge you may not think of is getting the equipment to get things up and running.

“It’s not so easy to get buses frankly, particularly electric buses or trains, there are huge wait times.”

“It takes about 4 to 5 years just to get the trains. So, these are not easy things, and we ask for people’s patience, we are working hard. But the whole thing is that we are investing into the long-term future,” he added.

However, local nonprofits like Transit Alliance, which advocates for walkable streets, bikeable neighborhoods and accessible public transit, think rapid mass transit should be more of a priority now.

“The reality is that the longer we wait to build these projects, the more expensive they will become. Because of inflation, because of the competition, because we are not prioritizing them, so the project must be larger in scope. It’s about building the things that are right in front of us right now,” said Kathy Dos Santos, Executive Director of the nonprofit.

She says there are some projects, like the Signature Bridge, which provides double decking of State Road 836 and allows cars to fly over Downtown traffic to go to Miami Beach, that are just more of the same of what we already have.

According to Connecting Miami, construction is expected to be done by late 2027 and will cost roughly $840 million.

But according to Santos, projects like these aren’t a good solution.

“It is not going to solve our traffic problems because we know when we build our roads, expand our roads, when we double decker, it creates the psychological and sociological effects called induced demand. In which, as soon as there’s an expansion yes, there might be reduced traffic time for a few minutes, for two years, and soon after that it will be back again,” explains Dos Santos.

“Being stuck in traffic is not just about the time you lose, but it’s about the energy, anger, stress. The reality that we are sitting for multiple hours in a day perhaps in our job, or we have physically demanding jobs, and that commute home does nothing for your health and does nothing in giving you time back with your family.”

It's a goal that Chairman Gilbert hopes the county can achieve.

“The average driver in Miami-Dade County spends over $1,800 a year in congestion costs. In our urbanized areas, Dade, Broward and Palm Beach, it’s $8 billion a year. But we have become numb to that pain. We are used to sitting in congestion, we are used to sitting in traffic, we are used to spending that gas money. We must build out alternatives,” Gilbert said.

THE COST

But he says those alternatives will come at a cost.

While there are no exact numbers as of yet, Gilbert says the county uses funding models where 50% of funding comes from the federal government, 25% from the state and the county contributes 25%. The county’s funding includes costs related to operation and maintenance.

He estimates each corridor will cost the county between $6 to $8 billion.

“We are spending that money already in a different way and trying to plan for the future. I think that’s the conversation we must have as a community, because at some point we have to plan to be great.”

According to the DTPW’s 2023 annual report, Miami-Dade County’s transit system is the largest in Florida and the 15^th largest in the country. In 2023, there were 19 million more riders compared to 2022 across Metrobus, Metrorail, Metro Mover and Special Transportation Services.

However, in 2023, 67.5% of county residents used their personal vehicle for transportation. 8.9% carpooled and that’s more than double the amount of people who used public transportation which was just at only 3.3%.

So why aren’t people using public transportation?

Santos believes it’s because the work in getting stations across the county is moving at a slow pace.

And she believes there is still a stigma behind public transportation. Santos is hoping for a system that works for all.

“It really has to be something that works for our lawyers and restaurant workers. It must work for our domestic workers and our doctors. And that’s really the epitome that Miami needs to move forward too.”

The county says they now know how important transportation is for voters. Morales believes they are on the right track forward and are hoping to pick up steam.

“We are not New York or Boston, but that’s what we are working towards. We are playing catchup and we are trying to do it as quickly and effectively as possible."