Take half a loaf of transit, because gridlock is not appetizing

The trust safeguarding transportation tax money has wisely agreed, with anguish, to push ahead with new South Corridor bus rapid transit although members are distressed that the public will get far less than was promised.

Once buses roll, maybe this year, the Citizens’ Independent Transportation Trust targets new traffic surveys to add more hours that are really rapid transit.

For now, the trust and the public are buying watered-down service that’s far from perfect. As member Mary Street put it, there’s no way to go back in time to change “the currently approved plan that is generally disfavored among us.”

That puts the South Dade Corridor into the growing ranks of half-a-loaf transit where trust OKs are vital because the county can’t spend the tax receipts without a trust vote but spending then deviates from plans.

Trust members last week cited Tri-Rail’s long-awaited downtown Miami arrival as an example. Just as the trust expected rapid bus service full time when it funded South Corridor construction, it expected a one-train Tri-Rail ride between downtown and Palm Beach. Instead, it’s getting a train change in Hialeah – at least for now.

Another half loaf was the money the trust guards to add transportation. Over the years, much has been spent for other things. Each year $12.5 million of $400 million receipts are spend to renew infrastructure, including last week replacing two air conditioning chillers in a transit department building.

Another half loaf, as we noted last week, is potential trust funding for the old Metromover system at slow speeds and low capacity to Miami Beach after the county spurned more modern transit. That trust vote is yet to come.

In all four cases, the trust is funding flawed efforts hoping for upgrades later. We detest partial efforts, but like the trust we agree to grabbing gains now and seeking improvement rather than waiting as mobility grinds to a halt for an unlikely shot at perfection.

The trust’s last-ditch bid last week failed to get the Florida Department of Transportation to ratchet up service on the South Corridor that as structured would often save only four minutes as opposed to a 20-mile drive over snail’s-pace US 1.

It failed because the department’s district chief during trust questioning disclosed that it’s not state rules or studies that will turn promised bus rapid transit into just another bus ride, as the county had said. Rather, the slow schedule was the plan of the county itself.

“As the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT), I don’t want to speak to the [county’s Department of Transportation and Public Works’] operations plan,” said District Six Secretary Stacy Miller. “The upgrades plan that will be enacted when they begin service is the only operating plan that FDOT has ever seen.”

The state, said Secretary Miller, merely approved the county’s own plan for limited hours the corridor would have non-stop bus rides between scheduled stops and when buses would stop for cars on state-controlled cross streets.

Non-stop trips between stations come when signals bar, or preempt, road traffic from stopping trains. The county planned three hours a day of preemption going north and three hours going south, and then only on weekdays. 

That disclosure jolted trust members last summer. They had voted for South Corridor funding for full rapid transit at all times. But when they asked county officials why, they were told it was a state decision. 

The state replied last week with documents showing it’s not its rules but the county’s plan causing the slowdown. But a plan change would require new county studies and a new operating plan for the state to again approve. That might not be in time for opening, Ms. Miller said.

Rather than delay a start, the trust decided to wait until after buses roll to seek new studies and a revised operating plan for more hours of real rapid transit.

“There is always the opportunity to do more traffic analysis and reanalyze how the system is working and opportunity to modify that in the future under what has been created in” the county-state memorandum of understanding, Ms. Miller said.

Trust Chairman Robert Wolfarth echoed that, saying that after the corridor opens “and then once we get the traffic reporting plan” the county and the state “can get the preemptions opened up” to add more real rapid transit. Ms. Miller agreed.

But that’s just hope. As member Peggy Bell correctly warned, if the South Corridor doesn’t succeed, it will erode faith in the other five legs of the county’s Smart Program to add rapid transit, because after eight years of work the South Corridor will be the first.

Ms. Bell noted that the traffic study for the corridor is now four years old and the south end of the county has grown, with $2.5 billion more county infrastructure for that region on drawing boards. In other words, the study is out of date.

“As you can see, secretary, it’s a little frustrating. We want this to be successful,” Mr. Wolfarth said. “Do we have an idea when we will see an open corridor?”

Ms. Miller said she had heard, but wanted Miami-Dade’s Department of Transportation and Public Works to tell the trust because it’s the department’s project, not the state’s.

“There were three funding partners,” said trust member Robert Ruano, “but one of the funding partners, the [trust], was not at the table” when plans were made for how many hours daily the corridor would actually fulfill rapid transit promises. The trust as of Friday did not know when the corridor is to open.

Did we mention that this project is a long way from perfection?

It’s more than a little frustrating to a public that has been promised a quantum leap in mobility, has been paying a sales tax to achieve that for more than 20 years and detests empty promises. But like the trust, we can’t go back in time. 

Let’s get our half-loaf transit moving now rather than waiting for perfection. Then, let’s go back to the table and get a lot closer to a full loaf throughout the county. Meanwhile, we’ll at least be better off than today. Gridlock is not appetizing.