Metrorail (Miami-Dade County)
Metrorail is a rapid transit system in Miami and Miami-Dade County in the U.S. state of Florida. It is operated by Miami-Dade Transit, a departmental agency of Miami-Dade County. Opened in 1984, it is Florida's only rapid transit metro system and consists of two lines and 23 stations over of standard gauge track.
Metrorail serves central Miami and surrounding areas, including Miami International Airport, the Health District, Downtown Miami, and Brickell, as well as the northern communities of Hialeah and Medley. To the south, service extends through The Roads, Coconut Grove, Coral Gables, and South Miami to Dadeland in Kendall. The system connects to the Metromover in Downtown Miami and to Tri-Rail and Brightline services. Metrobus routes serve all stations. In, the system recorded trips, with an average of weekday riders as of.
History
Construction
In 1964 the Miami Urban Area Transportation Study was initiated by the Dade County metropolitan planning organization. It was completed in 1971 and recommended the construction for a rapid transit system for Greater Miami. Having experienced a prolonged post-World War II population boom, metropolitan Dade County's permanent population rose by 35% to nearly 1.3 million residents within a decade, among the fastest population growth rates in the United States. Within a year of the study, county residents approved a $132.5 million bond dedicated to transit, with additional funding approved by the Florida Legislature for transit which, up until that time, operated solely on fare revenue. In 1976, with preliminary engineering completed for the system, the Federal Transit Administration committed 80% of the costs for the first stage of rapid transit system, with the county and state incurring the remaining cost. In the end the system cost over a billion dollars.In April 1979, the Interstate Commerce Commission ratified an agreement between the Florida East Coast Railway and Dade County to transfer the right-of-way along US 1 to Miami-Dade Transit, then named the Metro Transit Agency. Groundbreaking for the system the county commission voted to be named "Metrorail" took place at the site of what would become University station in June. Construction began in December 1980 with placing of a double-tee guideway girder near the University of Miami. The entire original line contained 2,704 girders, constructed at a cost of $55,887,830. In June 1983, the first segment of Metrorail, 10 stations from Dadeland South to Overtown was completed with the construction of the Miami River Bridge. Revenue operation commenced on May 20, 1984, with 125,000 taking the free first-day service from Pinecrest/Dadeland to Overtown.
In 1984 Rockne Krebs created an urban-scale neon sculpture multicolored light installation called The Miami Line that stretches across the Metrorail bridge over the Miami River. Additional segments between Earlington Heights and Okeechobee opened between December 1984 and May 1985. In March 1989, a temporary station was opened to provide a connection to the newly opened Tri-Rail commuter rail line, with the now permanent station officially opening in June. Preliminary engineering for a rapid transit extension to the Palmetto Expressway began in 1996 with Palmetto station opening in May 2003. As far as operational costs, revenues expected for 2006 were $17.15 million, while expenses budgeted for 2006 were $41.29 million. These historic figures became the last the Miami Dade Transit Authority ever disclosed, and are the figures still displayed on today's Miami-Dade Transit webpage as of January 2012.
With the area having a generally low density and lacking transit-oriented development, the Metrorail was designed as a park and ride system, with the idea being that suburban residents would drive to the stations, then commute the rest of the way into the city. Nearly all of the stations outside of downtown Miami have parking facilities, except Tri-Rail station. Several have large parking garages, such as and South stations, located at the southern end of the system, which combined have space for over 3,000 cars. Earlington Heights, located just northwest of Downtown and adjacent to Interstate 95 and the Airport Expressway, has a large garage that was formerly dedicated to Metrorail riders. However, that is now used by the county due to the station's low ridership, with only 95 vehicle spaces currently available. The successful Dadeland garages are at or over capacity, with two of Metrorail's proposed extensions, the West Kendall Corridor and South Link, intended to help alleviate them. The two northernmost stations, which are located near the Palmetto Expressway, Palmetto and Okeechobee, appeal to Broward County commuters with nearly 2,000 combined spaces. Additionally, the proposed North Corridor to the Broward/Miami-Dade county line would have included five park and ride facilities totaling 2,650 spaces. In the late 1990s, the plan was to potentially even continue the Metrorail line into Broward County along 27th Avenue, ending at Broward Boulevard near Broward Mall in Plantation.
Ridership growth and transit tax
After the initial segment of the single Green Line opened, Metrorail saw less than 10,000 riders per day. This increased to 15,000 after the rest of the line and stations opened in late 1984 and 1985. After running out of money due to cost overruns, the originally planned to be system consisting of several lines was never completed, and lack of transit-oriented development along the single line led to the system being regarded as a boondoggle. President Ronald Reagan commented that, given the low number of riders, it would have been cheaper to buy them all a limousine than the billion dollar cost of building and subsidizing the system. The federal subsidy was approximately $800 million of the $1.02 billion used to fund the line. Ridership was up to 15,000 after the rest of the line had opened. Ridership continued to grow in the late 1980s, with an edge city-like area known as Dadeland in suburban Kendall growing up around the southern terminus of the line at and stations. Consequently, the southern nine stations from Kendall to Downtown Miami have higher ridership than the northern end. This part of the system also has a higher average speed, having fewer curves and long distances between stations as it follows the congested South Dixie Highway. During the 1990s, ridership growth was relatively stagnant, however, and Metrorail remained the subject of criticism. At this time, ridership was up to about 50,000 per day, about a quarter of the original ridership estimate.Although the original referendum for a one-cent transit sales tax increase had failed in 1999, a half-cent sales surtax increase was passed by a two-to-one margin by Miami-Dade County voters in November 2002, with the intention being for the revenue to go fully towards the funding of new transit lines, including the Metrorail Orange Line, new bus routes, and increased service. Metrorail briefly ran a 24-hour hourly service from 12am to 5am and rush hour peak headways were reduced to 6 minutes, but the idea of the transit tax was sold to voters as being able to fund up to of additional Metrorail track by the 2030 long range plan, beginning with a completion of an Orange Line north corridor and east–west line by 2016. As it turned out, Miami-Dade Transit was running a deficit and used some of the tax to close the books, as well as using some to hire new staff, pay rent, and buy furniture for their new headquarters at the Historic Overtown/Lyric Theatre station. By the late 2000s recession, it was realized that only the AirportLink of the Orange Line would be funded, and after service cuts in 2008, Metrorail was running fewer trains than before the tax was passed. In response to all this, The Miami Herald published a comprehensive exposé titled "Taken For A Ride, How the transit tax went off track", detailing all of the promises that were not kept as well as what money was misspent and how. Despite the service cuts, due to the rise in energy prices and ever-increasing congestion, as well as a significant amount of residential development in the downtown area, ridership continued to grow during the 2000s, averaging well over 60,000 weekday riders throughout 2011. However, this is still short of the 1985 estimate of 75,000 daily riders that were expected by the end of that year. The transit tax also funded improvements to the adjoining Metromover system, including removal of the 25 cent fare, with the idea that higher ridership on the system would lead to higher Metrorail ridership, as well as the realization that the cost of fare collection exceeded fare revenue.