Where’s an effective engineer to put Tri-Rail on schedule?
If a camel is a horse created by committee, Tri-Rail travel into downtown Miami is a bullet train created by government.
Downtown leaders for years pleaded for Tri-Rail to carry in Broward and Palm Beach commuters. It looked easy via existing trains and tracks that private Brightline would lay for itself to its own downtown station.
The problem was cost. But governments got a deal done six years ago. Money was no longer an issue.
So, where are the trains? And what barriers led Tri-Rail’s executive director to tell his board Friday that despite his promises to them that trains will arrive Nov. 1 they won’t, and now there’s no schedule to get here.
Barriers to downtown have arisen in profusion since last year, one after another. But the hidden barrier that counts most is lack of leadership at Tri-Rail, and not just on its staff.
After a blitz of snafus kept Tri-Rail out of downtown, Executive Director Steven Abrams told his board, the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority, on Jan. 28 that he would resign. But the board left him at the throttle as it sought a new CEO, who may arrive by year’s end, if all goes well – which is unlikely.
If it takes almost a year to replace the man at the throttle, how soon can we really expect Tri-Rail trains?
System board members were perturbed when, they said, Mr. Abrams hadn’t told them for many months about roadblocks to Tri-Rail reaching MiamiCentral Station, but the board hasn’t helped service roll.
It doesn’t take a railroad expert to tell why. The board is nominally independent, but the three counties Tri-Rail serves each name two members, including one county commissioner. Gov. Ron DeSantis logs in the other four. Plus, a 10-member board faces ties in heated votes. Four governments are involved, with the governor’s hand hovering over the throttle, and nobody reports to anyone.
That structure is a recipe for a train wreck.
The board should have turned its hotbox over to an engineering consultant or a new leader to get trains rolling, as we said in December. Now it looks like 12 added months of dithering.
The timing couldn’t be worse because of a plague of perils. Tri-Rail must modify trains to clear the downtown platform, its trains may be too heavy for viaducts leading to the station, station rebar is exposed, locomotive emissions don’t meet federal standards, and a required train control system that it just installed was already out of date.
No matter who we blame – and there is enough blame to go around – the perils need remedies.
At last week’s board meeting, Mr. Abrams added two more barriers that he said killed any chance of arriving downtown by Nov. 1: team training is needed but competitors are roadblocks, and Tri-Rail is being told to supply more dispatchers to the Florida East Coast Railway than it agreed to.
Based on competitive pressures and Tri-Rail’s history, bet that more issues will arise, whether physical or fiscal or weather or whatever. Big projects always hit obstacles – if not, anyone could run them. Clearing hurdles takes leadership, knowledge and unity, none of which Tri-Rail exhibits in profusion.
Honestly, Tri-Rail’s ride to downtown was never an express trip. First, multiple governments had to finance it. Then, Tri-Rail needs the station of a competitor seeking tri-county passengers that also is competing for a route to Northeast Miami-Dade. Brightline is not eager, so its heel-dragging is logical.
To deal with FEC and Brightline requires Tri-Rail unity with a solid game plan. Bear in mind that none of the 10 Tri-Rail board members is a railroader, and Mr. Abrams came from that board; his history is elected office. Based on qualifications, all of them are over their heads. You wouldn’t find a bank without bank experts on the board or in the CEO’s chair.
To succeed, projects need strong leaders. Setbacks always appear. But Tri-Rail is structured to add setbacks, with four governments naming a board that depends on competitors to function. Mr. Abrams didn’t cause this mess. The board didn’t either. But they are the folks who must fix it, and they can’t do it alone.
In my notes for a column six years ago this week hailing Tri-Rail officials who said they would serve downtown before the end of 2017, I penciled “Whatever can go wrong will go wrong.” I didn’t know how right I was. It’s been setback after setback ever since, more now than ever.
Mr. Abrams is now the face of setbacks. Although he told his board Jan. 28 he intended to resign, he continues to be the face of Tri-Rail both to the public and in solving its unending problems.
After we published March 31 that Mr. Abrams said Tri-Rail expected to sell paid tickets into downtown by Nov. 1, a doubting reader posted on our website a query: “Why is Steven Abrams continuing on as the mouthpiece for Tri-Rail? You couldn’t get a straight answer if your life depended on it.”
Certainly Nov. 1 was not a straight line into downtown, regardless of who you blame for the latest issues. But the need is not to decide who erred or why, but how to fix all the snafus so that Tri-Rail runs downtown in our lifetimes.
The onus now falls on the board, not Mr. Abrams. He wants to leave and just fills a gap. Board members should fill it for him by naming an engineering firm to fix the physical problems right now before they ever find a top leader – because who knows when that could be?
It’s a good thing the board members don’t drive the trains – they might never leave the station.
William P
June 2, 2022 at 3:46 pm
Well said! Super saddened by this board. Complete disaster for our community.
Gerwyn Flax
June 4, 2022 at 11:27 am
The idea of Tri-Rail using a private competitor’s facilities was a bone headed idea from the start. Why should Brightline be anxious to facilitate a competitor’s success?
Tri-Rail should consider building its own station in the long term. Also replacing those embarrassing powder blue train cars with the obligatory painted-on palm trees
. I don’t blame Brightline for dragging its feet. Of course none of this will take place because Tri-Rail is rife with incompetent beauracracy, and lacks qualified leadership. I am not anxious to see Tri-Rail at City Center in its present iteration.
Ralph Rapa
June 4, 2022 at 1:16 pm
Private Sector – Government = Success