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The Other Side of the Tracks

This is the column the cadre of consultants and lobbyists coming into Miami Beach with a $500 million train track-laying construction project don’t want you to read. Can there be a better reason to read it? 

A.C. Weinstein
Columnist 

The Miami Beach City Commission is grappling with a decision on a pending vote that could severely impact the community for many years. It’s all about advancing a $500 million train track-laying construction project from the Miami side of the MacArthur Causeway into Miami Beach. It’s called the BayLink. 

The reasoning behind the laying of the train tracks, according to the BayLink’s consultants and lobbyists, is to provide a more palatable and reliable mode of transportation between downtown Miami and South Beach. The consultants and lobbyists are saying that Miami-Dade’s current bus system often finds itself jammed up in the grind of regular vehicular traffic during the afternoon rush hour, taking buses forever to cross over the MacArthur Causeway.

The strongest argument being brought forward by the BayLink consultants and lobbyists is that the county’s rapid transit bus system now looping South Beach is just too unreliable, hardly ever keeping to its posted time schedule. And besides, the buses are slow, often sitting for far too long in South Beach’s rush hour traffic.

To move commuters, workers and other riders more comfortably and swiftly between downtown Miami and South Beach, the consultants and lobbyists are offering to lay down train tracks across the causeway, then up Alton to 17^th, across to Washington and back down to the causeway to complete the loop.

Although mired in many deflecting side issues, the only decision the commission will make is whether or not to lay down train tracks in South Beach and, if so, what streets are to be torn up. Whatever streets are to be chosen, if that be the decision of the commission, the tracks will also need a string of accompanying street poles to connect and carry the overhead cabling along with the additional construction of large train stop platforms.

The streets to be chosen to lay the tracks will likely lose one or more vehicular traffic lanes and whatever curbside parking that is currently available on the blocks where the stop platforms are constructed to service the 100-foot long trains. The loop of streets that are currently under consideration for track laying include Washington Avenue from 1^st to 17^th Street and lower Alton Road to Dade Boulevard.

At several community gatherings hosted by Miami Beach officials, approximately 160 of the 180 residents and business interests who attended the meetings opposed the BayLink. Being one of the bigger money deals coming into Miami Beach from Miami in recent years, the majority of supporters were mostly the same dozen or so consultants, lobbyists and even a few hacks.

The bulk of the dollars within the $500 million project is in the cost of laying down the tracks, which include the tearing up and rebuilding of the streets, putting up the concrete poles to run the overhead cabling and the construction of train stop platforms. The BayLink, no matter how sugared by the consultants and lobbyists, is all about laying down train tracks in Miami Beach.

Not even the most passionate of BayLink proponents are absolutely sure what street configuration in South Beach is the best route to shape the loop to and from the causeway. Choosing the right loop, you see, is secondary. The game with this two to three year construction project, is to lock in whatever streets with the least community resistance because the real money in this deal is in the laying of the tracks.

 Let’s set the costly and permanence of laying down train tracks aside for a moment. There are other available options to provide rapid transit riders a more pleasant, reliable and even further reaching service than just the loop to and from 17^th Street and the causeway. But these options do not require the laying down of train tracks in Miami Beach and that will be a turn off to the consultants and lobbyists pushing for the bigger money deal.

Here’s one option. Right now Miami-Dade is using revenue collected from the additional half penny sales tax to purchase fleets of new buses to improve and beef up its transit service countywide, including routes in and throughout Miami Beach. And just as the half penny tax referendum promised, the elderly will ride those buses free.

To improve transit service in areas that have managed to preserve its architectural and historical character, such as Coral Gables and South Beach, Miami-Dade also has the ability to purchase new trolley style buses to test any number of loops within these special neighborhoods without having to dig up the streets to lay down costly and disruptive train tracks.

With South Beach being the epicenter of historic preservation, the trackless trolleys can even be designed with Deco in mind. And should the rush hour ridership on any proposed loop test poorly the trolleys can then be shifted to other streets to try a different route at zero cost. 

Moreover, during those few hours of afternoon traffic congestion, the trolleys can be designated to a dedicated lane. All sorts of options and testing can be tried to find the right loop to provide a more inviting and dependable transit service. But once the streets are torn up and the train tracks are down, it’s over. Whether it works or not, there will be no other options.

Miami is also very different than Miami Beach. There’s another plan being suggested to run train tracks in a northwesterly route on Biscyane Boulevard from downtown Miami to Aventura and beyond. Should that idea reach fruition the trackless trolleys in Miami Beach could then feed off that Biscayne Boulevard route, connecting riders not just via the MacArthur, but also with the Tuttle and Kennedy causeways to travel north, south and in a westerly direction. 

What is yet to be addressed with the train tracks is the poles and overhead cabling that will have to run the full length of the MacArthur Causeway. With strong winds and hurricanes always being a potential threat, why in the world would Miami Beach even consider the risk of falling poles and whipping overhead cabling during a storm?

There’s also the politics at play. It will be an extraordinary undertaking for the commission to fend off this incoming deal from Miami. Even prior to gathering citizen input at the public workshops and community meetings, a couple of commissioners and the administration expressed support for the project. How any elected or public official could advocate any position prior to holding resident workshops and community meetings boggles the mind.

The lobbyists and consultants are also spinning the passage of the recent referendum as a voter mandate for the BayLink. Hogwash. The referendum never mentioned the BayLink or any railroad system coming into Miami Beach. The referendum highlighted free bus service for the elderly and an improved rapid transit system, which could include additional buses and a trackless trolley system.

The commission is scheduled to vote on the BayLink at a special meeting on March 10^th. Any vote in favor of the train-track laying project, however, will be perceived as violating the integrity of the referendum, which called for the creation of a citizen oversight board prior to any spending of the half penny sales tax. The oversight board was a major selling point of the referendum to ease the public’s concern on corruption. To date, the voter mandated oversight board has not been set in place. 

It will be interesting to watch how the administration presents the track-laying project to the commission on March 10^th because it is quite apparent that the overwhelming majority of residents and businesses do not want a deal coming in from Miami that will tear up the streets to enrich the consultants and lobbyists far more than any benefit to or for Miami Beach.