We’re excited to get started on a bus network redesign in Miami!
Meet @scudderwagg and Christina with @humantransit. We are beyond excited to be working with these amazing folks on the #BetterBusProject. pic.twitter.com/s5TiGxsDQQ
— Transit Alliance Miami (@TransitMIA) May 8, 2019
Miami-Dade Transit runs a large network of about 100 routes, running over 750 buses across a huge area over 40 miles long. Over the last five years, the Metrobus system has lost about 1/4 of its riders, which has caused Miami-Dade leadership to question the current bus network and how well it’s serving the county.
Like many other Sunbelt cities, Miami is growing and a lot of that growth is in a few places: around downtown, on the beaches, and in a few key centers such as Coral Gables. These densifying centers are reaching the point where cars simply don’t work anymore, and transit is essential to the continued growth and prosperity, not to mention equity. Thus, there are increasing demands for more useful service in these core areas.
As in many cities, the edges of the region are also seeing new development designed almost entirely for car dependence. And many people moving to the edges are doing so because they have limited incomes and the housing is cheap. But the land use design and distance means that the cost to serve them with transit is very high. These trends are stretching Miami-Dade Transit farther and farther geographically on a limited budget. This combination of forces is putting great demands on transit in opposite directions and is heightening the difficulty of the ridership-coverage tradeoff.
A key question in the process will be the different roles of different transit agencies. Many municipalities have begun running their own municipal bus routes. Some, like the Miami Beach network, are extensive. As Miami-Dade has lost riders municipal systems have seen big ridership increases, rising from 7.4 million riders per year in 2013 to 10.9 million in 2017. Where these municipal routes compete with county-wide Miami-Dade routes, many people are choosing the municipal routes, in part because they are free. These trends are causing greater segmentation of transit services across the county and adding to the complexity that an average rider must manage when trying to figure out how to make a trip or trying to understand the whole system. They also represent a degree of duplication that could potentially be reallocated to create more frequent and useful service.
As always, public input (including but not limited to riders) will be essential to figuring out what direction Miami-Dade wants to go. For that effort, we are especially excited to partner with Transit Alliance Miami, a local non-profit organization advocating for walkable streets, bikeable neighborhoods and better public transit. Transit Alliance advocated this project for years, and now they are actually leading the process on behalf of Miami-Dade County, with a big emphasis on involving the community in decision-making throughout the process. We think this is the first US bus network redesign that is led by a community advocacy group.
We expect there will be some early outreach on key choices in the summer. In the fall, we expect to release two concepts for how the future network could look, and this will be a key point for public input. All of that input will guide us on a final plan, which we expect will be voted on this winter. Keep an eye on the Transit Alliance twitter feed and website for regular updates throughout the redesign process and opportunities to provide input and respond to concepts.