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Front Page » Transportation » Transit trust puts first and last mile first

Transit trust puts first and last mile first

Written by on June 28, 2016
  • www.miamitodayepaper.com
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Transit trust puts first and last mile first

Among priorities for next year, the Citizens’ Independent Transportation Trust has targeted solutions for the “first and last mile,” the distance commuters travel from their homes to public transit and from transit to their destinations.

“There’s been a lot of discussion with Uber on how we can more efficiently come up with that feeder pattern,” Executive Director Charles Scurr told the trust’s directors June 16. Plans are underway for the trust to hold a half-day symposium on the issue before year’s end, he added.

“We want to bring in some of our best local talent, and maybe there are a couple of national speakers we might want to bring in,” he said. “We want to work with the Transit & Public Works Department and our other transportation partners to put together a good strategy for that first and last mile.

“It’s going to require changes to our ordinance, because we have some real restrictions about what surtax funds can be used for in this regard,” Mr. Scurr said. “We think a good progressive approach is the way to go.”

The group also will continue to host transportation summits, which it has done since 2013. The next is tentatively planned for next May or June. “We want it to be timely; that would be right before All Aboard Florida opens, so we think it might be a good time.” The trust might wait until after the train service has launched, however. “Maybe we need to build on that success,” Mr. Scurr said.

A third goal is to repackage and re-market PTP 2.0, the trust’s roadmap for transit improvements. Though public acceptance has been excellent since the new transportation funding plan was announced last October, Mr. Scurr said, a new and enhanced logo, a “rebranding” of the trust as its creator and more community outreach might boost it even further.

The executive director’s office will present final objectives and a proposed 2016-17 budget to the board in July, he said, to be in sync with Miami-Dade County’s budget process.

8 Responses to Transit trust puts first and last mile first

  1. anon

    June 29, 2016 at 6:53 am

    Changes to which ordinance? Are they trying to weaken the mandate of the voters even more than it already is by focusing on helping Saudi owned Uber instead of planning rapid mass transit and light rail lines?

  2. DC Copeland

    June 29, 2016 at 6:58 am

    The Trust “doan need no more stinkin'” symposiums to make people like it. It needs results: giving the people what they were promised way back in 2002– MetroRail extensions and BayLink. More studies and lame waste-of-time PR events won’t cut it.

  3. Fernando

    June 29, 2016 at 9:48 am

    Is re-branding of the PTP 2.0 really a goal??? The goals should be to keep the promise made when the voters of this county opted to tax themselves higher than any other county in the state so that we could have a world class mass transit system. Enough of the re-branding and the forums. Stop wasting money putting in new bus benches and get to work on rolling out light rail to the south and west of the county

  4. Disgusted

    June 29, 2016 at 12:27 pm

    One more puff piece about ” plans ” and nothing about results. Especially by this group the Citizens Independent Transportation Trust. Ostensibly created as watchdogs , they are toothless, ineffective and useless, as for more than ten years now we have watched whomever roll over this group without any significant results. I wonder why these reporters who interview these people and others never ask them why they are so ineffective.

  5. B

    June 30, 2016 at 11:17 am

    They have to rebrand “PTP2.0” because it implies that “PTP1.0” is already complete. Please, go back to the basics of why the CITT was created in the first place (Metrorail expansion) and who funds the CITT (half penny taxpayers, who voted by 66% to expand METRORAIL).

  6. B

    June 30, 2016 at 11:25 am

    Citizens Independent Transportation Trust should rebrand itself as “Mayor Gimenez Rubber Stamp Trust.”

  7. Roy

    July 2, 2016 at 11:48 pm

    Not much will happen with mass transit funding as long as these permanent career County commissioners continue to be reelected. Mass transit has never been a priority issue with these County commissioners and they will continue to avoid it . It’s not about improving the standards of living in the county is about them getting reelected by not getting involved with expensive and dificult issues.

    Also our representatives in Washington DC that should be fighting for federal transit funding like Marco Rubio and Bill Nelson they are phantoms in Miami Dade county.

  8. sadly disappointed

    July 3, 2016 at 9:45 pm

    Wow, Chas. As I understand from attending and from reading the report, the 2013 “summit” was about invigorating priorities and engaging riders and stakeholders. The 2015 “summit” was to make progress on leveraging funding sources. Is this how government works, just keep moving the damn goal posts to a new PR echo chamber? (Apologies for the mixed metaphor but it seemed to fit…) One can’t but help to notice that the county still hasn’t done its part to make happen any major part of PTP 1.0 except the 2 miles to MIA and the automated fare+traffic systems, nor addressed the 2 structural issues that led to hijacking the original $ destinations (i.e., continuing operations gap or state of good repair, to use fta’s term). Please leave the first/last mile to the many agencies already charged addressing this and focus on PTP 1.0 or at least the many smaller unfinished items in your own implementation plan!!!

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