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Front Page » Transportation » Transit spending under trust oversight narrowed

Transit spending under trust oversight narrowed

Written by on January 10, 2023
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Transit spending under trust oversight narrowed

The Miami-Dade Transportation, Mobility and Planning Committee is sending an approval recommendation to the full county commission for a proposed amendment to “restructure the recommendation process of the Citizens’ Independent Transportation Trust (CITT) for county transit-related procurements to maximize efficiencies in the administration of contract awards.”

“Our procurement system is broken,” offered committee Chairperson Eileen Higgins.

The committee recommended approval of a “social equity statement” that would revise “the manner in which and types of contracts that the CITT reviews.”

Essentially, Ms. Higgins was asking for a return to the CITT’s original mission statement, which is, according to its website, “to oversee the People’s Transportation Plan funded with the half-penny sales surtax.” Voters approved the surtax in 2002 and the CITT was created that year to, basically, keep an eye on how the money was spent.

“Over the past 20 years, the half-penny surtax has generated over $4 billion for transit and transportation improvements,” according to a CITT fact sheet on the proposed ordinance. “It has paid for the expansion of Metrorail to the airport; new fleets of Metrorail, Metromover, and Metrobus vehicles; municipal trolleys and circulator services in over 30 municipalities; bicycle/pedestrian improvements; smarter traffic signals; and Park-and-Ride facilities that will serve the Strategic Miami Area Rapid Transit (SMART) Plan corridors, among many other transportation improvements,” the fact sheet said.

But Ms. Higgins argued at Monday’s committee meeting that the CITT’s review workload has expanded since the 2002 surtax started and it’s stalling transportation projects. She dropped from the proposal a plan to eliminate the requirement that if the trust recommends against spending any moneys, the county commission can override it only by a two-thirds supermajority vote, changing it to a simple majority.

The proposal the committee recommended be approved by the county commission was stripped down to the CITT returning to its original mission, overseeing surtax projects.

One Response to Transit spending under trust oversight narrowed

  1. DC

    January 11, 2023 at 10:07 am

    What a joke. It’s “original mission” was circumvented by previous commissions who “borrowed” monies not allocated for transit construction. And blaming CITT for holding back progress is sad, too, since expansion of Metrorail was stalled by previous mayors and commissions.

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