Miami-Dade’s mass transit system is like the body’s cardiovascular system. Or, at least that is how it should be. As it is currently, it is more similar to a cardiovascular system that does not reach the ears, nose, hands, fingers, feet, or toes. In our county, we refer to those areas as Unincorporated Miami-Dade. We have a transit system that works, sometimes, for only a portion of the population.
If you look at a map of Miami-Dade County you’ll notice that nearly half of our county’s population live in unincorporated areas. Now, if you look at a map of our mass transportation system, you can clearly see that these unincorporated areas are underserved. This is why I say that we have a “mass transit hole” in unincorporated Miami-Dade County.
In some municipalities, the absence of transportation provided by Miami-Dade County Department of Transportation and Public Works is made up for by a system of free municipal trolleys. The unincorporated areas are not so lucky.
Other transportation options exist in our county where public transit does not reach. Uber, Lyft, and Freebee are three market-driven transportation services that can be used as last-mile solutions or even for the full commute. However, for much of the unincorporated areas, these services are too costly for consistent use.
What do you do if you live in unincorporated Miami-Dade and cannot afford to regularly take Uber or Lyft, don’t have access to a free trolley, and can’t easily access Miami-Dade Transit? You drive. As more people drive, you have more cars on the road and more traffic…the word we’ve all come to hate yet live within our daily lives. A study mentioned in an article published by the Boston Globe mentions a staggering statistic; a mere 5% cut in traffic means a 20% drop in congestion.
We need to fix our transit system so that it doesn’t just help the people living in the urban cores. Everyone in this county should have access to efficient, attractive, reliable, and FREE (or as close to free) public transportation. That is the role of government- to provide critical services, like transportation, to its residents and visitors.
My next article will touch more on market-driven transportation and its impact on our county.
If everyone read what they will do to the water to build the 836 extension or Kendall parkway
The northern part is farmland and wetlands. By excavating 1,450 cubic yards of water and placing 7,500,000 cubic yards of fill for 350 acres of direct wetland impact and 100 acres ofsecondary/indirect wetland impacts. Just yesterday the commissioners gave a builder/developer the ok to crest 18 acres with 220 condos and 66
Private residences which is approximately 14 units per acre. If this doesn’t make u upset and disturbed about our environment. Please meander some more and ask all of them why. We need the water to flow
I am very glad and thankful to see a County commissioner write on this issue here. And what you point is painfully true, and painfully plain for me to see since the day I moved here about 12 years ago. Not long after moving here, I tried to use public transit to go, for example, from W. Kendall to FIU, but the 2 hour commute got old pretty fast. Back then, I couldn’t take the same bus lines on the return trip, because I had evening classes which ended after one of the lines I needed stopped running. So, I always had to call someone to ask for a ride.
I’ve never exactly enjoyed driving, and it is especially stressful and unpleasant here in Miami, but the public transit system did not help me make the most economical use of my time. I was fortunate enough that I eventually I was able to get a car, but many others in this area either can’t afford and/or are not physically able to drive. So, they are stuck with a system that is not conducive to upward mobility, and this has become part of a broader issue of social/economic injustice.
Also, I take issue with one the commenters who called W. Kendall “hinterlands.” It’s hardly hinterland anymore. It’s become quite highly populated and bustling with movement and activity. At the same time, I’m not trying to tell anyone what you should do with the half cent tax.
However, for about as long as I’ve lived here, I’ve wondered why public transit connections from Kendall and other unincorporated areas to, for example, a major destination such as FIU or Miami Dade College haven’t been invested in more? Why do residents here still have only bus lines which depend on traffic conditions for their own efficiency and punctuality? Additionally, why at least isn’t there more attention and investment in making it safer for transit users to walk/bike ride safely to/from the bus stop?
On Feb. 22nd of this year, a woman was killed *in the crosswalk* at SW 142nd ave on SW 88th St, at 6am on a weekday morning. I would be willing to make a hefty bet that she was on her way to a bus stop to go to work. I can’t verify this, because as much as I tried searching for more details about how it happened, all I could find was a short news story and photo taken from above showing that the car that hit her had a very smashed windshield and damage on its front hood.
Judging from the damage on that car caused by the impact with the woman’s body, I believe the driver was speeding. The speed limit on that part of SW 88th St. is 40 mph. Why have we allowed some unwritten exception to this speed limit? And how many more people have to die on the road (this woman is most certainly not the first pedestrian fatality around these parts), on their way to or from a bus stop, work, school, shopping or doing any routine task before we act to do something to protect them?
Finally, I would like to express my sincerest gratitude to you, as well as to Commissioners Daniella Levine Cava, Audrey Edmondson, and Eileen Higgins, for seeing through the fibs and folly of the proposed 836 extension and speaking up against it. I could say so much about all that is wrong with that project, why it will make traffic and quality of life worse here, as someone who lives here, not to mention the potential to cause serious harm for our water supply, but I will refrain from rambling off-topic any longer.
The west side of town was also promised one or two stops. For sure, one at FIU and another one is West Kendall. But instead they used our .5% additional sales tax for maintenance, something for which we did not vote!
The transportation in Kendall needs some things so the traffic can flow.
1. They need bridges that will go over snapper creek canal. And any other water that stops the traffic from flowing.
2. Some new streets that don’t go to the palmetto or turnpike so the buses don’t get caught in traffic.
3. Free transfers to buses going to the metro rail.
4. To stop the Kendall parkway. Because it won’t help
“What do you do if you live in unincorporated Miami-Dade and cannot afford to regularly take Uber or Lyft, don’t have access to a free trolley, and can’t easily access Miami-Dade Transit?” Suck it up. Or move closer to mass transit. Unless you were born there, your parents or you made the choice to live there. Don’t cry now because you realize it isn’t fun living in the hinterlands. Of course, if there had been visionary, responsible elected officials back in the day, they would have seen this coming and made sure there was affordable housing near existing transit and honored the 1/2 cents sales tax we voted on for extension of MetroRail. That said, keepa your hands off the new half cent surcharge monies released recently from the county. After years of diverting those designated transit building dollars to maintenance and other illegal uses, that money must now be used to build what we all voted for way back in ’02: extension of MetroRail up 27th Ave to Calder and construction of BayLink. After that’s done, you outliers can have a go at.