This is a subject I don't usually follow but it is getting too good. The Feds downgraded our North South corridor for matching funds. All hell broke loose with most Black County Commissioners (Jordan, Edmonson, Rolle) who have been waiting for this rail since forever -- well at least since they have been in office. Mind you, these are the same County Commissioners who always vote to move the UDB line Westward. You would think they would make the connection that if you put people and infrastructure out West, it is going to effect people in the urban areas. Joe Martinez and Pepe Diaz have been working at cross purpose to the black commissioners on transit, yet the black commissioners don't make the connection. Why? Greedy? Stupid? I don't know. they couldn't possibly have watched Joe Martinez pushing the East West corridor with an iron hand these past few years without realizing something was going terribly wrong for their corridor. I think they just didn't care and all the fuss now is just show.
Larry Lebowitz touched on some of the controversy but there is so much more to this story. Here is an excerpt from his February 4th article in the Miami Herald "Metrorail mess is just around corner":
Tuesday is lining up to be an ugly one at County Hall for Metrorail riders and Miami-Dade taxpayers who supported the half-cent sales tax for transportation in 2002.
The U.S. Department of Transportation will announce it is lowering the rating on Miami-Dade's $1.3 billion Metrorail North Corridor plan to a level where it doesn't qualify for up to $700 million in matching federal money.
The black community, which has been waiting for this Metrorail line since the late 1970s, will be justifiably livid. Expect Commissioners Barbara Jordan, Dorrin Rolle and Audrey Edmonson to throw plenty of heat.
Even if Miami-Dade Transit and the Carlos Alvarez administration can get their financial house in order, restore the rating and eventually win the federal funds, the damage to their collective credibility is already done.
There will be large pockets of the black community -- some of them demagogues and conspiracy theorists, others rational and battle-scarred by past injustices -- who will believe the county purposely tanked the numbers at this critical juncture.
Their logic: Harming the North Corridor now will make it easier for the mayor and the Cuban-American commission majority to justify killing the North and making the East-West Corridor the top priority.
The logic is flawed -- but that doesn't really matter in the swampy thicket of Miami-Dade ethnic politics.
Here's why they're wrong: the Federal Transit Administration will be lowering the rating because of the county's inability to maintain and modernize the entire system after 2015. If the county can't afford to pay for the transit system after the $1.3 billion North opens, why would it be able to do so for the $2.2 billion East-West?
The North Corridor fireworks will probably overshadow an issue that is no less important to the future of public transportation."
9 comments:
Whatever...that says.
Looks Chinese to me.
The original salemen (and women) for the 1/2 cent tax for transit were, to say the least, less than truthful about what the public would get for their money. They hid the cost and the need to upgrade the current system, which was being held together with duct tape and chewing gum, and oversold what we would get for the money. Some of you might remember some promises of 88 miles of new metrorail.
To his credit, Barreiro was the only one who ever said that a 1/2 cent would not be enough and always said we needed a full cent. But the real powers that be, after getting their asses handed to them 3 years earlier with the "penny for tolls" failure wouldn't dare ask for a full cent again.
I'm not going to mention names, but AP, SS, DA, and their cunsultants did a masterful job of pulling the wool over everyones eyes, and leading the public to believe that the 1/2 cent was for new stuff. All the while, it was really only going to be enough to fix up what we already had and maybe hire some people, and buy some newer buses.
Once the tax passed, the real Jedi Master (BC-S) stepped in and hung DA out to dry and placed a couple of "yes men" (GB,CB, and RB) in charge. Together, they perpetuated the "you'll still get all this new stuff" lie, while most of the BCC was asleep at the wheel. Although, Gimenez seemed to be the only commissioner questing anything, he had already been marginalized by the other commissioners.
Fast forward, now AP, SS, DA, CB, and RB, are all gone, a ton of new people (mostly from one community) have been hired, a few new buses have been bought, but mostly all the money has been spent on things the average person cannot see. On top of that, the construction boom caused the prices of all the major metrorail projects to go through the roof, and vuala "the pefect storm" of wasted money and unfulfilled promises moves in.
Most of the perpetrators are gone now (most not all) and the elected officials are left scratching their heads and pointing their fingers at eachother. Meanwhile, a few consultants and engineering firms got rich and the public is getting angry.
That, my friends, is the cliff's notes version of Kaiser Sosie and the Peoples Transportation Plan.
the usual suspect
Note: There was a comment in chinese. I removed it because I could not determine if it contained objectionable material (like saying nice things about Natacha Seijas). That is what people are commenting on: the removed comment.
Great comments Usual Suspect"
LET'S SEE IF I CAN GUESS THE INITIALS
AP IS ALEX PENELAS
SS IS STEVE SHIVER
DA IS ?
DAnny Alvarez
The 1/2 penny tax for mass transit projects was poured down a rat hole by giving municipalities 20% for road landscaping and other frivolous things, building/widening roads; anything but mass transit. The CITT tried to rein in the non-mass transit things so they were made impotent by the BCC.
It's worse than just westward expansion to suck up north corridor money. Remember the Lennar project called Florida City Commons by Card Sound Road in wetlands? Jordan (brother Mayor of FL City and sister lobbyist), Moss, Rolle and Edmonson all thought it was great. This location is about as far from the north corridor as one can get and the infrastructure cost would have been astronomical. These commissioners, presumably looking out for the best interest of the north corridor folks, should be called on the carpet for selling out the people they espose to represent. The likes of Martinez, Seijas, Barreiro and Diaz don't have the north corridor as a priority (despite lip service and chest pounding from the dais). It's up to the black commissioners to salage the north corridor but they are too busy pushing the UDB at cross purposes with the north corridor.
I wish more people connected the dots and held commissioners accountable.
They used the money for everything except what they promised us. I won't vote for another 1/2 penny or penny under control of the BCC.
Traffic is awful and we really need transit. A seperate legal authority, a transit authority, outside the County is in order. A hard hitting, no-nonsense, performance-based, professional business operation is needed to meet our needs.
You ride transit in other cities, then come home, and want to cry.
http://www.miamisunpost.com/030608newsmiamimetrorail.htm
News
March 6, 08
Miami
Derailed
Delayed Metrorail extension meeting disgruntles residents
By Brandyss Howard
The postponement of two highly anticipated public meetings about the Miami-Dade Transit’s Metrorail expansion left a bad taste in the mouths of residents concerned about how the proposed $523 million project will affect their families and community.
Laverne McDay, an Overtown resident for more than 10 years, and other citizens arrived at the Sheila Winitzer Central Administration Building at Northwest 33rd Street and 32nd Avenue on Feb. 26 to gather “valuable information” from Miami-Dade Transit officials about the Metrorail extension that would connect the Miami Intermodel Center to the Earlington Heights station, only to discover that the open-house meeting had been delayed.
“I left work an hour early to come down here because I was interested to see what kind of changes were going to be made,” said McDay. “But once again, all we are left with are broken promises.”
She also expressed her disgust that the community was not notified of the cancellation, and that the only explanation residents received came in the form of blue flyers distributed by a desk clerk at the building. The document urged citizens to express their concerns to a Miami-Dade Transit representative via mail, e-mail or phone. But when McDay called the number the next morning, she heard a recording stating to “call back at a later time.”
Construction on the first phase of the proposed “Orange-Line” project, which includes the corridors of Northwest 27th Avenue and the East-West extension near Florida International University, is scheduled to begin within the next 10 to 15 months.
Residents living in those areas want to know more about the project and if it will improve the safety of their communities and reduce rush-hour traffic.
“There are so many people driving up and down Biscayne, up and down I-95 in a hurry trying to get to work,” said Winstor Fredericks, who lives near Biscayne Boulevard and 135th Street. “I am wondering just how many people the Metrorail would be able to accommodate.”
With questions left unanswered, all residents can do at this point is wait — either for the county to reschedule another meeting or for someone to answer the Miami-Dade Transit outreach hotline.
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