Send South Dade Transitway back to square one, trust urged

The citizens group that oversees spending from the county’s transportation tax is looking to send operational plans for a 20-mile South Dade Bus Rapid Transit corridor back to the drawing board less than a year before it is due to begin running.

The Citizens’ Independent Transportation Trust has become increasingly restive since June in seeking details of how the transportation department aims to operate the South Dade Transitway. Members have complained about stonewalling and obfuscations and have said that from what they have been told, promises to meet the top standard of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) won’t be kept.

On Nov. 1 they refused to listen to a presentation on the plans from Josenrique Cueto, transportation department deputy director, complaining that the answers to their 28 June questions arrived just before the meeting, too late to study. He is due back this week and is on the committee’s agenda.

But on the same agenda is the unusual urging for the transportation department to revise the operating plan for the bus corridor “to include local, limited and express BRT routes and to allow all BRT buses to employ traffic signal preemption for all BRT bus routes in both directions throughout the service day every day of the week, in keeping with its commitment to provide true Gold Standard BRT service.”

It was in June that the trust first was told that plans for a Gold Standard rapid transit service at all times had been limited to just part of the day and only on one direction, depending on rush hour flows. That revelation set off the quest for details.

The resolution up for a vote this week also urges that the transit service be “consistent with the goals for prioritizing public transit over single occupancy vehicles.”

The resolution also urges that the Department of Transportation and Public Works “present the proposed concept of operations and operating plan to community stakeholders, such as the affected municipalities, and the public at large in order to solicit their feedback prior to the plan’s finalization.”

The resolution does not discuss any resulting delay in rollout of Bus Rapid Transit. It has already been delayed from its original 2022 planned start.

The county pledged Gold Standard operation after the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce voted by 92% in 2018 in favor of applying for a federal grant to support Gold Standard Bus Rapid Transit. “Many members came in thinking rail was the only option,” Chamber CEO Alfred Sanchez told Miami Today then. “A lot left saying Gold Standard was a no-brainer.”

But Gold Standard levels are predicated upon traffic preemption over cars in both directions at all times, a pledged that seemed to have disappeared by June.

Meanwhile, work on the transitway – the roadbed of Henry Flagler’s old FEC Railway – is nearing done, stations have risen and purchases of new buses for the route are complete. The 100 new 60-foot, battery-electric low-floor buses are to open level with station platforms, and some are built to open on the left side rather than the right. They cost more than $175 million.

The urging by the trust cannot change the course, operations or timing of the transitway. That decision belongs to the county. But the trust holds the purse strings on more than $100 million in developing the transitway – the county’s share of the costs. The rest comes from the federal and state governments.