As costs soar, North Corridor transit mode may change

Written by Miami Today on April 22, 2026

Plans for North Corridor rapid transit to the edge of Broward County may be headed back where they came from, reverting from a choice of a heavy rail to an earlier selection of a less-costly fixed guideway system, or perhaps some newer technology.

In 2019, less than a year after the Miami-Dade Transportation Planning Organization chose fixed guideways for the 13.5-mile line, it reversed and chose heavy rail estimated in 2023 to cost up to $3 billion. State estimates now have hit $4.2 billion, the organization has just been told.

Without citing the rapidly rising cost, a measure before the organization’s board today (4/23) would modify the preferred route choice to again include fixed guideways.

The resolution, requested by the Florida Department of Transportation, would also include in the mix of modalities “other new and emerging technologies” that are not spelled out.

Planning for the corridor has been that the state would pay 25% of costs, along with 50% from the federal government and 25% from local sources, so a state request to encompass more modes of transportation carries considerable weight.

The state transportation department’s Daniel Iglesias, in an April 15 letter to the local planning board, wrote that since the organization in 2018 first chose a preferred mode of transit for the corridor, “new and other technologies have emerged that were not available for consideration at that time. The evaluation of these technologies, without reducing the existing capacity of the corridor may result in a cost effective alternative to advance the North Corridor.”

As planned, the corridor would run along Northwest 27th Avenue from 62nd to 215th streets. Destinations include Miami Dade College’s North Campus.

The corridor was one of six in the 2016 Smart Plan to add rapid transit throughout the county. No North Corridor construction start date has yet been advanced.