Commission keeps streetcar plan
rolling
The Miami trolley, expected to move further along the
legislative track today, is still far from the station
BY LARRY LEBOWITZ
While serious financing questions remain to be answered,
Miami city commissioners are expected to roll a little
farther down the tracks today toward creating a sleek
$132 million streetcar system from downtown to the
Design District.
Rolling along some of the exact routes where trolleys
thrived 80 years ago, the air-conditioned, modern
streetcars would link the booming condo canyons, shops
and cafes north of downtown with museums, parks,
nightclubs and performing arts centers that are planned
or under construction.
''This is an absolutely crucial part of the big picture
for the future of the city,'' said Commissioner Johnny
Winton, whose district would benefit the most from the
streetcar. ``We have to get our transportation systems
in place in front of the condo boom, or we could wind up
with serious gridlock that could kill it all.''
Within a quarter-mile, or a 10-minute walk, of the
proposed 6.75-mile track: 60 development projects with a
combined 14,400 residential units and 2.64 million
square feet of retail and office space planned or under
construction.
Powered by overhead electrical lines, the streetcars
would run every 10 minutes along fixed-rail guideways in
designated lanes shared with other vehicular traffic.
Stops are planned every two to five blocks.
LOTS OF RIDERS
If the optimistic 2008 opening date remains on target,
forecasters are projecting 3,000 riders a day at the
beginning, ramping up to 8,100 a day by 2025. With the
exception of a few spaces needed to build loading
platforms at the stations, on-street parking impact
would be minimal.
The Miami streetcar is in keeping with a growing trend:
Young professionals and empty-nest baby boomers are
flocking back to inner cities to pursue urban lifestyles
and avoid hellish commutes on increasingly clogged
highways.
Transit experts say socioeconomic factors are
underpinning streetcar successes -- especially in
Sunbelt communities that came of age when car culture
was king.
The same young white-collar professionals who would
never hop on a bus might be willing to leave their
luxury rides in the high-rise condo garage for a safe,
clean, efficient streetcar running the same route, said
anthropologist Beverly Ward of the Center for Urban
Transportation Research at the University of South
Florida.
In Toronto, which developed a streetcar similar to the
one proposed for Miami, officials estimate as many as 60
percent of the customers are so-called ''choice'' riders
who never used buses along the same streets.
Planners have tentatively placed three stops on the
central boulevard of Midtown Miami, between 29th and
36th streets, where 3,000 high-rise condo units, 900
apartments, street-level shops, cafes and 100,000 square
feet of offices are being built on the old Buena Vista
rail yards.
While its boosters are hoping streetcars will be rolling
sometime in 2008, the system is far from a done deal.
Commissioners today are expected to authorize managers
to forge ahead with an array of complicated financing
scenarios for the construction tab of $132 million plus
another $3.5 million a year for initial annual operating
expenses.
Miami officials were hoping to issue bonds to leverage
the city's cut of the half-cent sales tax -- currently
$10 million a year -- to underwrite a large chunk of the
system.
Now, they are looking at the sales tax along with city
bonds, plus other local, state and federal funding
sources -- including one that doesn't even exist yet,
but is currently being proposed on Capitol Hill, said
city transportation official Lilia Medina.
Medina said the city is considering creating an
independent authority, or a joint operating pact with
Miami-Dade Transit or possibly hiring a private firm to
design, build, operate and maintain the entire system.
LINK TO BAYLINK
In the downtown business district, the streetcar route
would run parallel to Miami-Dade Transit's elevated
Metromover, and connect with Metrorail at Government
Center. The route was intended to seamlessly integrate
with Transit's proposed BayLink system connecting
downtown Miami with South Beach via the MacArthur
Causeway and circulating in both cities.
But BayLink has been beset by intramural political
squabbling on the Beach and is a second-tier transit
priority at County Hall.
The bottom line: BayLink is, optimistically, at least 10
to 15 years away, meaning the city might have to fork
over more upfront money for tracks, cars and maintenance
garages -- costs that planners were originally hoping to
share with the county transit agency.
Those details don't concern streetcar boosters such as
Winton.
He's already dreaming about Phase Two, which would
extend the line through Buena Vista East, Little Haiti
and the Upper East Side neighborhoods to the northern
city limits.
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