Busted: Miami Beach Derails Baylink
In November 2002, Miami-Dade County residents approved a ½-penny sales tax to fund various innovative public transportation upgrades and additions. One of the major proposed new rail lines is Baylink, a 19-mile streetcar system that would link the City of Miami with Miami Beach via the MacArthur Causeway.
Technical Aspects
Baylink will integrate seamlessly with the tracks of the proposed City of Miami streetcar, uniting Miami’s densest residential and commercial centers. The expected cost of the project is $500 million, half of which would come from federal funding and the rest split between local and state sources. With 43 stations and 3 distinct routes, the system is projected to generate over 20,000 daily passenger trips. Elevated guideways on Watson Island would ensure that the streetcar would connect with Jungle Island, the Miami Children’s Museum, and proposed Shangri-la Hotel, while bypassing the causeway traffic and proposed port tunnel entrance.
Shaky Political Support
Despite some local support for Baylink, Miami Beach politicians and special interest groups have apparently derailed the system. Speculation is that one source of opposition to the project may be the Miami Beach hotel industry which fears competition from easily accessible mainland hotels and worries that Baylink may not be in their best interest.
The Beach balked at the project’s merits and initiated a major overhaul of one of the streetcar’s main Miami Beach corridors, Washington Avenue, which kept Transit planners at bay. Regardless of motives, this led to the MPO adoption of a locally preferred alternative that pushed the project back to 2023.
The political future of Baylink has changed little since the election of Mayor Matti Bower last November. The Mayor’s office has taken a hardened stance against Baylink, favoring instead a “more flexible” local circulator bus alternative. I had the chance to speak recently with Miami Beach’s Chief of Staff, AC Weinstein, who spoke on behalf of the Mayor:
An MPO committee member informed the Miami Beach subcommittee that we will not see Baylink in our lifetime. The Mayor has always leaned against the Baylink system, because residents want to remove overhead wires and the shuttle buses are more compatible with our historic city.
Unwarranted Concerns
From our perspective, the city of Miami Beach has offered few alternative solutions to the burgeoning population and commerce in the region. Much of the resistance and counterarguments they have presented against the streetcar are manageable and easy to overcome. For example: the narrow geography of Miami Beach virtually ensures that any track placement will be ideal, making the train accessible from nearly any point on the beach and nullifying the “flexibility” argument of buses. Engineers have already created a way to power the streetcars from a live wire located beneath the street, eliminating the unsightly and hurricane prone overhead wires. Furthermore, the train will travel along historic routes, areas where train use was successful for several decades, as well as along dedicated rights-of-way on the MacArthur Causeway, which will significantly reduce travel time and ensure direct access despite traffic concerns.
Economic Vitality
The Baylink project is a vital asset to Miami-Dade County residents and visitors because of the direct and easy access it would create to our largest economic engine – our coastline. Recent transportation studies show that Miami Beach will soon be reaching a critical point with vehicle congestion, a period where traffic will begin to erode the economic strength of our densest urban region. By creating a reasonable alternative, which brings about land use changes unlike buses, the City of Miami Beach will be catering to the nearly 50% of residents who do not depend on a vehicle for daily transportation needs as well as the millions of annual visitors.
Miami-Dade Transit and the Metropolitan Planning Organization have the authority to bypass any decisions made by the City of Miami Beach. Baylink is the clear solution for Miami Beach, a matured neighborhood filled with the right cultural, urban, and pedestrian friendly conditions to re-establish a transit system that will guide future growth in a more manageable and sustainable manner.
5 Responses to “Busted: Miami Beach Derails Baylink”
February 22nd, 2008 at 9:48 am
is there anything we as citizens can do to help push baylink along? is there a petition or something we can sign?
February 22nd, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Josh-
The Alliance for Reliable Transportation (A.R.T.) appears to be the best organized effort with regard to transit issues…
http://www.protransit.org/default.htm
And to keep abreast of transit issues in general, Gabriel’s site at http://www.transitmiami.com/ provides excellent on-going coverage.
February 22nd, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Of course this project must move foward now, stop letting the hotels rule policy on the BEACH……….The greater benefit of all Miami Beach residents is the point, our polution level is low (air) lets keep it that way, no more car congestion, move Baylink closer to reality.
February 28th, 2008 at 3:00 am
It’s not the hotels that are objecting, it’s the racial bias of the ruling class on the beach that wants to keep the “riff raff” away.
They have been doing everything in their power for years to keep any sort of real mass transit system from making its way onto the islands. Looks like this is the latest episode of elitist gestures on their part.
Shame on them.
March 19th, 2008 at 6:39 pm
Politicians only think of themselves and their own futures in this part of the world. The fix is much less popular and most would consider immorale. However there is always the choice of citizens to unite, cooperate with each other and then force their public servants to comply with their wishes. At the very least it would scare the public servants to their soft money.
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