Commuter rail plan deletes station on Miami Dade College land
The cost of long-awaited North Corridor commuter rail to Hard Rock Stadium has risen again, its use has been put off again, and it no longer will have a station promised on Miami Dade College’s North Campus, the Citizens’ Independent Transportation Trust has learned.
Furthermore, every earlier study of the system is being repeated. So now rail completion is estimated for 2037, a year later than Nilia Cartaya of the Florida Department of Transportation had told the trust in May, an update shows.
Her May presentation had put the capital cost of the 10-mile elevated Metrorail extension with eight stations and seven park-and-ride sites at $1.9 billion. By December the cost was up to $2.2 billion and is destined to rise: “We’ll come back to this body with an updated figure in the next few months,” she said.
The trust oversees county transportation sales tax receipts, which together with the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) and the state are to fund the rail line.
Steps to build the North Corridor were frozen after the county in 2022 pulled the plug on a call for public-private rail partners. That detour to private developers and then back again had left state studies dormant from May 2020 to November 2022.
“We are taking a fresh look at all of these items as we are moving forward,” including planned use of Metrorail itself on the corridor and “the ideal locations for the transit stations,” Ms. Cartaya told the trust last month.
But one station’s location drew trust fire for a shift from a once-promised college campus site to the center of Northwest 27th Avenue.
“Our station in 2019 was [planned] on college property,” said trust member Harry Hoffman. “So how are students going to get to the campus?”
“We would of course look at pedestrian connections at the street level and of course we would” work to encourage the nation’s most-attended public college system “to implement a shuttle service to provide that,” Ms. Cartaya replied.
Mr. Hoffman, a new trust member who had been dean of academic affairs at the college’s North Campus and later president of the Homestead Campus, recalled that many issues Ms. Cartaya was relating to the trust had been discussed and decided before the state was asked to terminate planning for the route in November 2022, and now work has begun again.
The public, he said, had been told that all decisions were made “except, guess what, we don’t have the money. So I’m skeptical of what you’re showing here is ever going to come out to reality because we’ve gone through this once and now we’re going through it a second time.”
“This is where the taxpayer really gets hit for this project,” Mr. Hoffman said. “The college will have a shuttle to bring them to the campus? I don’t understand that. It doesn’t make any sense to me at all.” After crafting a plan that everyone accepted but was short of funding, “now we’re going to do this thing all over again.”
Mr. Hoffman, who represents county commission district 11, served by Commissioner Roberto Gonzalez, pointed to the probable impact of what he was hearing on elected officials.
“There are elected officials in that area that need to be made aware of that we’ve already gone down the road on this and now we’re going down a second time, and if they’re elected by the people that live in that area, they ought to know that they are wasting the taxpayers’ money going down this the second time,” he said. “The first time they were ready to go, they had everything done.”
“We will be going out to the community, so we’ll definitely –,” Ms. Cartaya started to reply before Mr. Hoffman cut her off to say “Oh, you’d better make sure you have a strong drink before you do that, because you will have people coming out of the woodwork to say, What is this? Why are you changing? What happened?”
Ms. Cartaya said she expects the state to seek stakeholder and public comments on the plans late this year. “Good luck,” said Mr. Hoffman.
“Every time something gets scrapped for one reason or another it’s like a brand-new project,” trust Chairman Robert Wolfarth said, “and all those [planning, design & engineering] studies, all those consultants. You’re right, the taxpayers are paying for it.”
“I have a selfish reason” for questioning North Corridor plans, said Mr. Hoffman. “I want to see that … people can take the train to North Campus.
There’s quite a few students that live in the area. And I can assure you that they have no idea that the train station that was going to be on the [campus], that was going to be multi-retail and have a gym and so forth, ain’t any more. Now you’re going to be in the middle of 27th Avenue, and you’ve got to cross over to get onto the campus….”
“And by the way,” he continued, “does your go up to the football stadium, your plan?”
“Yes, we do,” Ms. Cartaya replied.
“And your station’s going to be in the middle of 27th Avenue?” he asked.
“So for the stadium,” she said, “we’re working through that and we’re most likely going to have the station on stadium property, but again…”
“So how come they can have the station on the stadium property there,” Mr. Hoffman asked, “but they can’t on the college?”
“So, again,” she replied, “all of this will be fleshed out and we’ll definitely be going out to our stakeholders and our community and gathering feedback.”
“There’s still an opportunity for the public to weigh in,” said Mr. Wolfarth, who added, “I don’t understand the reason.”
Jay W
January 8, 2025 at 11:56 am
Is this the same train the mayor promised by the World Cup?
Manny
January 9, 2025 at 3:43 pm
Construction, even if all was ready to go, would take many, many years.
Jay W
January 11, 2025 at 9:08 am
Agreed. Which is why it was weird to make the announcement back then.
Oscar
January 10, 2025 at 2:20 pm
Yes.
The original Metrorail was approved by voters in 1972 and fully completed 11.5 years later. Actual construction took less than 4 years, and was completed May 1984. This project has been studied, and engineered multiple times overs the past 40+ years. It is not possible to predict if it will ever be completed.
Richard R-P
January 8, 2025 at 11:58 am
It’s so embarrassing that this area cannot get its act together when it comes to expansion of public transit. They really should just throw in the towel, as the people involved don’t really seem to know what they’re doing.
Olis Buchanan
January 9, 2025 at 11:31 pm
This is the reason I voted No to expand Rapid Transit. 30 years ago the south was promised Rail, then scaled back
To bus rapid transit. Now the bus are no longer rapid, but slow buses that stop at 36 red lights after spending over $400 million.
Then they claim to solicit public input but in the end they just build whatever they want no matter how ineffective it is. Blame Eileen Higgins for the state of transit. She touted BRT as a silver bullet. But in the end riders will be stuck at red lights and wasting time transferring at dadeland while the county pats itself on the bat for a job well done, despite creating a system that does not meet the transit needs of today or tommorow.
Sandra
January 11, 2025 at 10:12 pm
Genius move to delete the NoMi campus station bc it triggers more calls for “feedback ” from the community to trick them into thinking they have a say in any of it. Gives more time to the crooks to pay more taxpayer money to cronies doing so-called studies. Actually building something would stop that flow so they never will.
Ernest Bellamy
January 14, 2025 at 1:26 pm
Sadly, this illustrates a profound lack of understanding of how people use public transportation, land use, and development. We are continuing to see our FDOT professionals kicking the can of rapid transit down the road, iterating on a design allowing for the ease of cars, perpetuating a trend of siloed planning that does not consider the preferences of the people holistically (not as non-personal car transportation users, but as whole beings who need a spectrum of options all created equal: walking, biking, bus, rail, car) and the agencies they work on behalf of (public transit agencies).
There is no easy solution without re-educating our planning and transportation leaders or bringing in a new cadre of professionals who can critically analyze the whole picture of ensuring the best possible future. Where is the comprehensive land use planning that goes along with planning the transit corridor? What is the reason for invalidating older plans?
The FDOT professionals here are good people, but this is clearly outside of their area of expertise if all we have to show is another article about them conducting yet another study and that the results are less than satisfactory to the community.
Questions for FDOT, Is there any buy-in from major institutions along the corridor, in this case Miami-Dade College, on their needs? Is the US Army Reserve being consulted, as they have an armory right at the intersection in question. Would they be comfortable with a transit station located on their doorstep?
Has the FDOT actually visited this intersection to observe the pedestrian and transit use experiences? The entire intersection is a vehicular oriented wasteland. There is a gas station that turns its back to the intersection, a closed vehicular oriented Walgreens, and FDOT-controlled eminent domain land for future roadway improvements that they’ve owned for close to 35 years. Zoom out for the blocks beyond this and it only becomes more auto oriented and less favorable for the pedestrian experience.
Is FDOT even aware that Miami-Dade Transit utilizes a bus drop-off on campus as a critical bus transfer point in their system, and that having the Metrorail station on campus would only enhance the support of that service? Miami-Dade Transit has already demonstrated where their priority lies regarding bus placement by placing them right where they are needed, on campus where the people want to be.
It is almost certain that no one will use a station located at the intersection of Northwest 119th and NW 27th, whereas a station located on campus would ensure maximum use. We would appreciate it if FDOT could explain to us the flawed logic of the obvious?
It is unconscionable to do this. The Miami-Dade Commission, the Miami-Dade College, the Miami-Dade Transit, the Miami-Dade Metropolitan Planning Organization, immediately affected residents, the Miami-Dade residents along the North Corridor, the Miami-Dade College students, and all Miami-Dade residents should hold FDOT accountable for their poor visioning and management on this project. From this article I commend Trust members Mr. Hoffman, and Mr. Wolfarth for already doing so.
Other than FDOT understanding the current budget for construction, another study is not necessary. In the past 30+ years, we have been stuck in the mud on this public transit project (among others), and it is time that we do what every other community in this nation has done; build.
Due to the fact that it has been established that FDOT cannot properly manage this issue, they should look to hire a consultant with transit planning expertise (a consultant who has helped cities build good transit not a local consultant that routinely does work for FDOT), have the consultant hold community meetings about transit station planning, develop a comprehensive land use plan along with station location planning, and finally submit a proposal to the U.S. DOT. FDOT should provide matching funds, and let construction begin.
If we have billions of dollars in this state to improve, enhance, and double-deck expressways and tollways, we can certainly fund a $2/3 billion for an extension of our rapid transit system. In comparison to what is spent yearly on roads in this state and in Miami-Dade County on never-ending expressway improvements, this amount in comparison is chump change.
Let’s stop letting our tax dollars fund another state’s or city’s mass transit project and achieve our own; we are long overdue.
Jahmalon
January 15, 2025 at 9:18 pm
Look at what we have here the lies and excuses of MDT and Mayor Daniella Levene Cava will never forget their betrayal of the community.