A final call to give South Dade real rapid transit as pledged

The trust created to add mass transit isn’t giving up on faster trips from Homestead to Dadeland as the public was promised, but it doesn’t seem to be getting any help.

Last week, the Citizens’ Independent Transportation Trust unanimously called for the minimum we were promised: Bus Rapid Transit all the time. That’s a gutsy call to restore a plan that was cut down to just three hours a day of real rapid transit in one direction, then three hours the other way – and weekdays only.

The clock is ticking to get what everyone vowed, from past Mayor Carlos Giménez to current Mayor Daniella Levine Cava.

In fact, in the early days those promises had the leg of the trip from Dadeland to Cutler Ridge on rail, shifting to true Bus Rapid Transit from there south. Then that was cut to bus, but only until riders hit 35,000. Later even the 35,000 threshold for rail vanished.

Disappointed trust member Peggy Bell, former Cutler Bay mayor, last week laid it all out.

The South Dade Corridor, she recalled, was to be the first of the six Smart Plan rapid transit additions using taxes the trust was formed to spend. Ms. Levine Cava, then county commissioner for the area, took the trust along the route and assured everyone of full signal preemption, meaning buses would never have to wait for cars to cross the 20-mile route, Ms. Bell said.

Mayor Giménez “assured me ‘the buses would operate like a train but with rubber wheels,’” Ms. Bell added. “We were also assured of a multi-layered service plan that would include an express with limited stops – a true Gold Standard.” None of that is now planned.

The system’s look, she said, is as pledged “but operationally this plan leaves much to be desired and fails to fulfill the years of promises to South Dade residents.”

Meanwhile, South Dade traffic is growing, she noted. “In Homestead, rush hour used to begin at 7 a.m. Now they tell me they have to leave their home at 5 a.m. to get downtown.”

Vital relief isn’t coming. The trust was told last fall that preempting cars from delaying buses would cut the bus ride from Homestead to Dadeland from today’s 70 minutes to 47. But in hours without preemption service, the trip would only be cut from 70 minutes to 66.

“Without Gold Standard [no preemption] in its operation,” Ms. Bell said, “there is no ‘rapid’ in Bus Rapid Transit and the riders will simply be getting another bus with 14 stops and continue the gridlock we currently experience.”

Why can’t buses flow as promised? The county transportation department has told the trust it’s because the Florida Department of Transportation doesn’t want to prioritize buses over private cars or slow auto traffic.

The trust, on the other hand, was set up with the aim of giving priority to vehicles carrying many passengers over cars carrying few.

There’s no way to verify why the state is unwilling to keep its agreement to prioritize mass transit on the route. The Florida Department of Transportation was asked to send someone to last week’s meeting to explain but didn’t, which upset trust members.

“The buck really stops with them in getting their permission to get preemption, so it’s really important that we hear from them,” Chairman Robert Wolfarth stated after the trust had voted to give the public what was promised for its money.

The trust voted to urge “Miami-Dade County and its partner transportation agencies to enhance the proposed operating plan for the South Dade Corridor Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Project by re-introducing a multi-layered service plan for the South Corridor to include local, limited, and express BRT routes, and allowing BRT buses to employ traffic signal preemption for BRT bus routes in both directions as much as feasible in keeping with its commitment to provide true Gold Standard BRT service to the South Dade Community, and consistent with the goals for prioritizing public transit over single occupancy vehicles.”

Nobody is happy with what’s coming whenever the bus service starts.

But no tinkering can be done without a state OK, and the state hasn’t surfaced. You’d think they’d have enough people to send someone to meet with a trust that’s funding the first new rapid transit in Miami-Dade in more than three decades.

Someone should have been straightforward long ago in admitting that the service into which we are pouring far more than $300 million wasn’t going to be real rapid transit. Were we supposed to learn that after it began running? 

“We expect traffic preemption,” said Joseph Curbelo, a trust member since 2010. “We did not expect buses to be held up at traffic signals in either direction…. It’s hard without FDOT being here because they’re so integral to the operations of this.”

So, the trust having taken a gutsy stand for taxpayers, is either FDOT or the county listening?

Without preemption, trust member Paul Schwiep made clear, this decade-long effort will miss its aim, which is to get drivers who have a choice of how to travel out of the cars that today jam South Dixie Highway and onto fast buses.

“If you’re trying to pick up choice riders along this route you’ve got to save them time,” he explained, “which means you’ve got to have an express BRT service and it’s got to have priority.”

He’s right: few will exit a car for a bus to save four minutes. Moreover, nobody is going to believe promises for future rapid transit if somebody doesn’t keep the current promises.

In the end, Mr. Wolfarth suggested going back to former mayor and now US Rep. Giménez for help. “No one knows the South Corridor better than Rep. Gimenez and he remembers the promises that were made.”

Promises made at all levels of government must be kept. The trust is serious about following through on pledges. The county, the state and even Washington should get aboard too.