FYI Miami: June 6, 2024

Below are some of the FYIs in this week’s edition. The entire content of this week’s FYIs and Insider sections is available by subscription only. To subscribe click here.

ON TRACK LOCALLY: The Northeast Corridor rail line to link downtown and Aventura is on track, at least locally. “We expect the acceptance to enter engineering in August,” Josiel Ferrer-Diaz of the Miami-Dade Department of Transportation and Public Works told the Citizens’ Independent Transportation Trust last week. “That will line up exactly with a 60% submission for design of the project,” which is to offer commuter rail 19 hours a day, seven days a week starting in December 2027 over 13.5 miles of the Florida East Coast Railway corridor. Nationally, the $263.7 million that President Joseph Biden recommended to help fund the service in his $7.3 billion budget is pending approval by Congress, which frequently ignores presidential budget requests. The Northeast Corridor is one of six in Miami-Dade’s Smart Program to develop rapid mass transit to relieve traffic congestion. The total project estimate is $538 million.

STARTING AGAIN: After the county’s Transportation Planning Organization (TPO) decided in January to pivot from bus rapid transit to another mode from downtown Miami to West Dade, the county transportation department is aboard, said Josiel Ferrer-Diaz, the chief of operations. “We’re actually taking a step back and performing a feasibility analysis, so the next critical step is we’re going to be coordinating with [the Federal Transit Administration] on the project on the next steps,” he told the Citizens’ Independent Transportation Trust last week. “We’re going to close out the existing work orders.” The TPO decided to try two other paths to reach Florida International University, either rail or an elevated Metromover along Flagler Street. The planners agreed to shut down the long-sought bus rapid transit plan down the center of SR 836. The rail line belongs to CSX, a freight carrier that the county has been trying persuade to share tracks with a commuter line. 

TARGETING FRANCE: Visit Florida will expand European marketing to France and boost its CEO’s pay under a spending plan that includes $80 million from the state and $95.6 million from the industry. The agency’s board last week raised President and CEO Dana Young’s salary by 15% to $230,000. The overall budget is 0.7% lower than this year’s. The agency, which runs media campaigns in the US, Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom and Latin America, also is expected to spend $1.6 million on research that includes a vacation-behavior study. It will expand its approach to France, where it sees “a growth opportunity,” the board was told. Canada, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico are the top five countries for Florida’s international visitors, with France 10th in 2023.