Miller: Tri-Rail’s leaders must resign or be fired

The $70 million Tri-Rail station at Brightline’s Miami terminal was designed so badly that the trains don’t fit. That means that Tri-Rail cannot tell you when the station will open. And, it is already four years late.

This is why I am calling for the top leadership of the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority (SFRTA), which runs Tri-Rail, to step down. The key agency players are Executive Director, Steven Abrams, Deputy Executive Director, Diane Hernandez Del Calvo and General Counsel, Teresa Moore.

So how did we get here?

In 2015, Miami-Dade County, the City of Miami and Miami’s Overtown Redevelopment Agency funded a new Tri-Rail train station located in downtown at Brightline’s Miami terminal. The station was expected to be open by the end of 2017.

In early December 2021, the SFRTA Board heard, possibly for the first time, that the new Tri-Rail service to downtown Miami would be delayed because the trains don’t fit in the station.

Just before Christmas, the agency’s executive team provided more detail to the SFRTA Board revealing the problem is probably worse than previously explained and that the executive team had known since at least 2018.

Depending on who’s talking, the reasons include the platform was designed wrong, the platform was built wrong, the trains don’t fit on the platform, the trains are too heavy to safely operate to the platform, the federally required safety system isn’t ready on the trains and the train’s emissions are too dirty to meet the requirements for the site, which is located directly under apartments.

Those who have been reading my columns know that I am careful with my pronouncements. I weigh elements carefully before I take a position. This is one of those situations where I have scrutinized the facts and have come to my conclusion with great regret.

There is a lot of mud in the water, and I hope the situation gets resolved quickly, but what is clear is that the entire current SFRTA Executive Team needs to be replaced.

Here are the facts:

• Abrams was responsible for negotiating the failed agreement with Brightline for the project, failed to lead the agency through the project, appears to have concealed the problems and failed in his responsibility to notify the Board and the public of the ongoing problems.
• As a direct report to the Board, Moore failed in her fiduciary responsibility to notify her client (the SFRTA Board) since 2018 of the problems she admitted to knowing about in the December Board meeting.
• Hernandez Del Calvo failed to manage the agency’s capital development project (the station), failed to manage the public’s funds responsibly and, failed to notify the Board of the failures.

I ask for the three of them – Abrams, Moore and Hernandez Del Calvo – to do the right thing for Tri-Rail and the people of Miami and the rest of South Florida and resign effective immediately.

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