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The Selling Of Tracks

City Manager Jorge Gonzalez is still confident that he has secured four members of the city commission to vote for tracks. That should be of great concern to the residents and businesses of Miami Beach. 

By A.C. Weinstein
Columnist 

The Chairman of the Citizen’s Technical Subcommittee of the Metropolitan Planning Organization’s (MPO) BayLink Study, Frank Del Vecchio, has fired off a detailed e-mail to the Miami Beach City Commission, which questions the accuracy of what that $160,000 Portland-based consultant has been telling the public. This writer will go even further. That Portland consultant has proven himself to be little more than a smooth talking salesman for tracks or light rail.

Del Vecchio points to one particular inaccuracy, which must be addressed, simply because it was the consultant’s answer to a threshold question that was asked of him by more than one member of the commission. The consultant’s answer to that question was supposed to inform the commission as to the consequences of their track or no track vote.

The question, and it was asked of the consultant at the June 9^th Transit Workshop at the convention center: Can the City of Miami Beach back out of a BayLink project it now selects? In other words, should the commission vote for the BayLink option with tracks, do they have the ability to pull the plug on the tracks at a later date?

The consultant’s answer: The City of Miami Beach can back out of a BayLink project selection later. Del Vecchio’s research undeniably refutes what the consultant told the commission. The consultant was either unaware of the process or he flat out misinformed the commission and public.

To be accurate, the consultant should have answered: Once the commission votes for tracks, Miami Beach will have no legal or practical capacity to back out. Why?

A condition authorizing the city commission to back out of a vote for the tracks would require the approval of the MPO, City of Miami, Citizens Independent Transportation Trust, Miami-Dade Commission and the Federal Transit Administration. The consultant’s answer that Miami Beach can back out is not a legal or practical possibility.

But why should that surprise anyone who has been following the orchestrated push for a $510 million track-laying construction project that would run across the MacArthur Causeway and into Miami Beach? As predicted in this column early on, the consultant has all but dismissed the possibility of any trackless option and his only objective is to now sell to the public the concept of laying down tracks.

Give the consultant credit. He is doing exactly what the city manager wants him to do and he is doing it well. What the consultant did not anticipate was the high level of review and scrutiny from the residents of Miami Beach, a savvy lot that’s fought its way through and prevailed against other high-priced campaigns generated from the other side of the bay.

This entire charade is the full responsibility of Miami Beach City Manager Jorge Gonzalez. He continues to push and will not budge from his commitment to get those tracks down, no matter how severely impacted the city, its residents and businesses will be for several years with major street demolition. Nothing seems to matter to the manger other than securing those four votes on the city commission to approve tracks.

Remember how this charade all began. Several months ago, the reason that was given for the tracks was to offer all of those 9 to 5 working professionals who recently moved into the new buildings on West Avenue a link by rail to their jobs in downtown Miami. That was the reason that Alton Road was being pushed for tracks. Well, that didn’t quite fly.

The next reason, according to its proponents, was the tracks would alleviate traffic gridlock and congestion. Not true. Even the Portland consultant now admits that tracks will not alleviate traffic gridlock and congestion. To continue on with his sell, though, he is now saying that it could in the future. How convenient.

The next reason for the tracks, again according to its proponents, is that it’s needed to bring the tourists staying in the hotels in downtown Miami into Miami Beach. And now, the newest spin for the tracks is that it’s needed to attract larger conventions into Miami Beach.

At least that’s what Commissioner Simon Cruz is saying as he readjusts his argument favoring tracks. Cruz told the public at the June 9^th workshop that Miami Beach has lost out on some of the bigger conventions because the city doesn’t have enough hotel rooms to support them and that tracks will help solve that dilemma. That’s a new one.

According to the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau and just about everyone else in the travel and convention business, the reason Miami Beach may be having a difficult time competing for the larger conventions is due to the undersize of the convention center, not lack of available hotel rooms. That’s what the plan to expand the convention center is all about.

If it’s any consolation at all, the debate over tracks is now moving into a more honest mode, no pun intended. No longer can its proponents lay claim that the laying of tracks in Miami Beach will do anything to improve public transportation citywide. The tracks are to support development in Miami, not to improve transit in Miami Beach. It’s been a bogus debate from day one.

One after the other, homeowner and condominium associations, are trying to figure out the purpose of the track laying into Miami Beach. Just about every resident-based association has expressed its opposition to tracks because of lengthy street demolition, the running of overhead cables and the failure of anyone to prove that tracks will do anything to improve public transit citywide.

But to keep the sell for tracks moving along, the consultant had no choice but to dismiss any form of a trackless option. Why? Because the BayLink rapid transit option without tracks, such as a new and improved bus service linking downtown Miami and all points east, including a more enhanced and convenient routing through Middle and North Beach, is the far less costly and a more appropriate form of public transportation for all of Miami Beach. It’s an absolute no-brainer.

But the big money coming into Miami Beach from the Miami side of the bay has had an enormous influence on the city manager and certain members of the commission. The consultant understands his role and mission. It’s tracks all the way. Forget anything else.

The consultant is being paid $160,000 to sell the tracks to Miami Beach voters, or at the very least, to try and soften their hardened opposition prior to the upcoming election.  Gonzalez needs all the help he can get in trying to hold on to those four commissioners. With so many city voters against the tracks, Gonzales has placed the commission, particularly those seeking re-election, in a very difficult position.

For reasons only Gonzalez can answer, he will not budge from his commitment to get those tracks down. Even though the tracks, if approved by four members of the commission may be ten or twenty years down the road, or as Commissioner/MPO member Jose Smith has stated, “probably not within our lifetime,” it has no bearing on Gonzalez. He wants those tracks.

At this writing, Gonzalez is still confident that he has secured four commissioners to vote for tracks. And perhaps, more than anything else within this entire and costly charade, that should be of the greatest concern to residents and businesses of Miami Beach.