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Miami-Dade County Commissioner Kevin Marino Cabrera, District 6, knows firsthand what it’s like to be waiting for the bus under the blistering hot sun or in a pounding rainstorm.
As a young man, for more than four years, Cabrera rode county buses to school and often would call the county’s Department of Transportation and Public Works to complain about buses being late.
“Transit is very important to me because I rode the bus. And I didn’t ride the school bus, I rode the Metrobus,” Cabrera said during a recent interview on the Mobility Matters podcast, hosted by Javier Betancourt, executive director of the Citizens’ Independent Transportation Trust, and produced by Miami’s Community Newspapers.
Drawing from his personal experience and his mother’s continued use of public transportation, Cabrera spoke of the importance of having rapid transit corridors that can connect different areas of the county, like the ones planned for Flagler Street and the East-West Corridor. These corridors, he said, can ease access to different parts of the county and lower commuting time for county residents.
“You have over 60 percent ridership on Flagler, on the East-West,” Cabrera said. “For many years nobody wanted to explore the possibility of doing rapid bus (service) or maybe even light rail on Flagler. The more ridership you have, the more funds you can draw down from the federal government and from the state government… that helps us in terms of not having to put as much of our local money.”
The commissioner also spoke about the importance of pedestrian trails, such as the Ludlam Trail and The Underline.
“The Ludlam trail is a phenomenal project that brings a linear park,” he said. “The Ludlam Trail is more in the heart and soul of our county. It’s in a working-class neighborhood, and it provides an amenity for working-class families that might not have the possibility to do another sort of activity. It provides folks the ability to go walking, bike riding, running – whatever it may be along that trail.”
In his wide-ranging interview, Cabrera also talked of expanding access to the Golden Passport program, which allows seniors to use local transit services free of charge; of the need to synchronize traffic lights, and the need for seamless connectivity between Miami-Dade Transit and the trolleys and rideshare services that the Citizens’ Independent Transportation Trust helps to fund in 33 local municipalities.
“We’re trying to figure out a way in which we can get all the cities to work together to have some level of connectivity…Maybe each city can go one stop into the next city so that you can get into that new system. Again, it’s about trying to make it easier for riders – making it seamless,” Cabrera said.
“It’s not about us. At the end of the day, it’s about the rider and making sure that wherever it is that they’re going, whether it’s work, pleasure, or maybe a medical appointment, it’s making sure that it’s seamless, easy and as simple as possible for them to use our system.”
Mobility Matters airs every other Thursday between 9 and 10 a.m. View the live podcast on CITT’s Facebook page at: Facebook.com/TransportationTrust. You also can visit www.miamidade.gov/CITT to learn more about the CITT’s ongoing efforts to oversee your “half-penny” sales tax for transportation and ensure the continued implementation of the People’s Transportation Plan.
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