County negotiates to trim Beach monorail line price
Miami-Dade expects a final price proposal in March for the Trunkline segment of the Miami Beach Corridor monorail, which exceeded its previously negotiated price of $586.5 million to reach almost $1 billion, to develop a final recommendation for county approval.
The county is still negotiating with MBM Partners LLC regarding pricing on the Miami Beach-Miami transit link after not accepting the updated $979.2 million price, which surpassed the $586.5 million that commissioners approved for the interim agreement phase, said Department of Transportation and Public Works (DTPW) communications and special project administrator Luis Espinoza.
“The county is conducting preliminary analysis of the cost information from the most recent update from the concessionaire,” he said.
The 3.5-mile monorail project interim plan that was approved Oct. 31, 2020, would have an 18-month pre-development time to design, finance and plan construction and operations. It would be completed in 2026, according to the DTPW, as part of the Strategic Miami Area Rapid Transit Plan, which aims to add six rapid transit corridors.
The monorail, which has been called the Beach Corridor Causeway Extension Trunkline, would have two trains running constantly at 12 trips per hour with a 300-rider capacity, according to the Miami Beach Monorail Consortium led by Meridian Investors and Malaysian casino company Genting, which bid to undertake the first phase of design and development and was approved in March 2021, with feasibility studies that would connect to Genting’s Resorts World Miami location that would rise at the former Miami Herald site.
The trunkline connecting Downtown Miami to Miami Beach would extend from Herald Plaza through the Metromover platform and continue east along the south side of the MacArthur Causeway. There would be stops at the Children’s Museum and at Fifth Street and Washington Avenue, with a 2.3-acre maintenance site at a potential Watson Island location, according to a preliminary engineering report from Parsons Corp. in January 2020.
“The station at Herald Plaza has connectivity with the Omni Bus Terminal to facilitate transfers to and from existing and future bus routes,” said the Parsons report. “Passengers could transfer to bus/trolley service extending along Washington Avenue to the Miami Beach Convention Center.”
The developers’ most recent price estimate nearly doubled the original price tag, which now includes $90 million for cost escalation and $12.98 million for operations and management, among other design and build costs.
“To move forward with a successful project, the county team intends to work with the concessionaire to identify areas where cost reductions can occur where the county feels costs are excessive,” Mr. Espinoza said. “The agreement is under negotiation, and we are expecting a proposal sometime in March.”
After that, he said, a final recommendation for commissioners and the mayor would require an approval vote.
Karen E Couty
February 24, 2022 at 11:56 am
This project is long overdue.
Getting to the beach from Downtown was a very long busride.
12 Trips an hour seems excessive and could be cut in half if that would save some funds.
Gerwyn Flax
February 24, 2022 at 7:48 pm
A boondoggle in the making. It might be cheaper to add at-grade tracks to run street cars across the bay and ir casino ambitions.
Gerwyn Flax
February 24, 2022 at 7:57 pm
A boondoggle in the making. It might be cheaper to add at-grade tracks to run street cars from Government Center to the beach, eliminating Genting and their casino ambitions.
Raidel Oviedo
February 24, 2022 at 9:32 pm
This project is not well thought through. Imaging a tourist will have to take the metro rail from the airport to government center, then the mover to the monorail to arrive in Miami Beach to get on a trolley or Uber or taxi to get to wherever they are going, carrying luggage. What a joke!!!
Keith Buchanan
March 3, 2022 at 11:49 pm
Why is it that the county can afford to spend 1 billion for 13 miles but can’t afford 1 billion for Metrorail South? Where is the conversation about ridership? Don’t we need 35,000 daily riders to make it worth while? Why can’t the county save money and do a BRT at street level? Why is the county introducing another mode of travel? BRT to the Metro rail, metro rail to the metro mover, metro mover to the monorail. That’s about an hour In transfer time. Will the county ever take a holistic approach to transit? Each part of the city having a different type of transit defeats the purpose mass Transit. Transit numbers will always be low when transfer times are an hour. What is so SMART about waiting for a connnection?
Phil Shisbey
March 16, 2022 at 10:47 pm
I’ll tell you why not at ground level – because of rising oceans! Time to build up. Miami’s going to be underwater in a few years….. Miami and every other coastal city had better be building way above grade.