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Miami Herald
04-08-2025
- Business
- Miami Herald
As traffic worsens, why is the state making commuting harder in South Florida?
If ever a place needed more mass transit, it's South Florida. We don't have to tell you: If you've ever driven Interstate 95 or the Palmetto Expressway near rush hour, you know. Traffic is one of the most painful parts of life in Miami. So the idea that state funding for Tri-Rail, a commuter rail line that runs from West Palm Beach to Miami, is being slashed — potentially even forcing the rail line out of business — is as astonishing as it is short-sighted. We need more mass transit around here, not less. To make this even more nonsensical: The cuts come just as Tri-Rail is breaking all-time ridership records — 4.5 million commuters rode the trains last year, up from 4.2 million a decade ago. Those are commuters who are not on the roads. The last thing we want is to force them back on the highway. In what world, then, does it make sense to cut $27 million from the money Tri-Rail had expected to receive from the state? The bad news was tucked away in the state budget passed by the Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis in June: Florida's contribution to Tri-Rail went from $42 million a year to $15 million. This is happening because the state reevaluated the statutory minimum it was required to pay the commuter line — and came up with $27 million less than before. As David Dech, executive director of the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority, which manages the line, told WLRN: 'That was quite the blow to us.' We understand the need to reduce state spending. We agree, in fact. And maybe this reduction is about fiscal restraint, a concept that had been sorely missing in Tallahassee for years until recently. But if the state wants to divest itself of financial responsibility for projects it no longer feels it should be burdened with, the end result can't be harming — or killing — one of the few methods of mass transit that we have in South Florida. During a July 25 workshop held by the transportation authority, Dech said that if the funding cut stands, Tri-Rail would be able to run as it does today only until July 2027. There are efforts to find ways to halt this disastrous scenario. Each of the three counties (that's the 'tri' in Tri-Rail) already puts $3.2 million a year into the Tri-Rail pot now. Could that number be pushed up to $10 million each, as Tri-Rail has suggested? That seems like a step in the right direction but the timing, when counties like Miami-Dade are facing budget shortfalls, is rough, as Miami-Dade Commissioner Raquel Regalado told the Editorial Board. Another factor: All of this is being exacerbated by the end of federal stimulus money — Tri-Rail used $71 million in stimulus money last year, the Sun Sentinel reported. There was other rail funding at risk in the state budget, too, including money for the Northeast Corridor Project, also known as the Coastal Link, that is supposed to run east of I-95. After the disastrous news, Tri-Rail has been regrouping. It's not totally without resources. Some federal grant money still goes to the rail system, and there's also the possibility of construction on Tri-Rail land around stations to make money. There's one such project in Boca Raton, an apartment project where rent will go to Tri-Rail. Tri-Rail's operating budget is $150 million a year, and fare increases wouldn't do much to help. That's not surprising. Most rail systems rely at least partly on government funding. Yes, South Florida now has Brightline, the private rail. But Tri-Rail is a true commuter line with much more affordable rates, often under $10. Brightline is not its replacement. Regalado, who is on the transportation authority board, said she is hoping to work out a five-year plan with the state to more slowly phase out government money and allow the rail system the time to find ways to stay afloat. That idea makes sense. Tri-Rail is a lifeline for its users. It offers an affordable way for workers to get from Palm Beach County to Miami-Dade, with Broward in between. The state, the counties and Tri-Rail must find a way to keep the trains running. Instead of making things harder for Tri-Rail, we should be making it easier to keep providing this critical service.
Miami Herald
01-07-2025
- Business
- Miami Herald
Miami-Dade says Fla. budget derails funding for commuter train on Brightline tracks
A planned commuter train between Miami and Fort Lauderdale saw its funding plan derailed Monday by Florida's new state budget, which defunds a key source of transit dollars for the $927 million project, according to county officials. If funded, the Northeast Corridor project — also known as the Coastal Link — would bring a version of Tri-Rail commuter trains to the heart of the Miami area's urban corridor, east of Interstate 95. Miami-Dade has been planning stations in Wynwood, Little Haiti, North Miami and other neighborhoods along the route, which would eventually stretch north to Palm Beach County. The rail project had secured $200 million in state funding to match local tax money needed to qualify for a federal transportation grant to cover Miami-Dade's 14-mile portion of the proposed rail line, which would run along existing Brightline tracks. But the dedicated funding source for those rail dollars was all but eliminated in the $115 billion budget package passed on June 17 by the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature and signed Monday by Gov. Ron DeSantis, according to a summary from Miami-Dade's legislative staff. Late changes to the budget language eliminated a provision in state law reserving some real estate taxes to pay for matching rail grants from the federal government. The change caught transit advocates by surprise and left them hoping for future legislation to plug the funding hole in the only Miami-Dade rail project with a short-term path to crucial federal dollars. 'I find it mystifying that the State legislature would defund a transit project that Miami-Dade's Congressional delegation has made a priority and is included in the President's budget,' Miami-Dade County Commissioner Eileen Higgins said in a statement. Higgins, a candidate for mayor in the city of Miami, chairs the County Commission's Transportation committee and has been the board's main advocate of the Northeast project. 'I will be advocating for a correction to this mistake as the legislature convenes later this year,' she said. Higgins and others are looking to Florida House Speaker Danny Perez, a Miami-Dade Republican, to make sure Miami-Dade has the needed state dollars for the Northeast Corridor project. His tax-cut agenda as the House's most powerful Republican helped shape the budget. In a statement to the Miami Herald, Perez rejected the notion that the Northeast Corridor dollars were actually at risk and warned the DeSantis administration against attempting to cut funding in the Miami area. 'Any suggestion that these reductions would impact significant Miami-Dade projects is purely political,' he said. If the Florida Department of Transportation 'or any other entity attempts to shut down major Miami-Dade projects, the Florida House will consider launching an investigation into abuse of office and political retaliation.' The commuter rail plan in Miami-Dade relies on federal and Florida funding Last summer, the Florida Department of Transportation notified Miami-Dade County that the Northeast Corridor rail project qualified for $200 million in state dollars. Miami-Dade planned to contribute at least another $200 million, with the combined amount enough to meet the matching threshold for federal Department of Transportation dollars. In October, the project got a boost when the Department of Transportation under President Joe Biden approved Miami-Dade for $389 million toward the Northeast Corridor, money requiring congressional approval that's still pending. The 2026 Transportation budget under Trump lists the Northeast Corridor as a project that could receive funding later in the budget year. Business leaders tried to close the deal in Washington earlier this year. In April, a delegation from the Partnership for Miami business group traveled to D.C. to lobby lawmakers on the Northeast Corridor and also met with Trump's transportation secretary, Sean Duffy. Then, just days before the June 17 budget vote in Tallahassee, county transportation planners learned of the language they say puts the Northeast Corridor budget at risk. To reduce state spending, the new Florida budget ends a rule reserving some dollars raised in real estate transactions — known as 'documentary' or 'doc' stamp taxes — for matching transit grants. Instead of reserving about $40 million to $50 million yearly for federally funded rail projects, the real estate dollars will instead go into Florida's general spending bucket to compensate for lost revenue from the legislature's new tax cuts. 'There was unfortunately very little time to react,' Jess McCarty, the assistant county attorney who is Miami-Dade's main lobbyist in Tallahassee, wrote in a June 24 email to a county staffer. The lost matching money for federal rail projects came on top of another cutback in the state budget for transit funding in Miami-Dade. As part of more than $1 billion in tax cuts, the new budget includes a provision backed by Perez that eliminates a 2% sales tax that businesses pay when leasing commercial space. By eliminating that tax statewide, the Florida budget also wipes out a small but notable portion of two voter-approved sales taxes that are only charged in Miami-Dade. One is a half-percent sales tax to fund transportation projects. The other is a half-percent sales tax to fund Jackson Health, Miami-Dade's public hospital. By exempting commercial leases from those taxes, the Florida budget is expected to cut tax revenue by about $27 million each for Miami-Dade transportation projects and for Jackson, according to a summary provided by the Florida Association of Counties. A $27 million cut amounts to about an 8% revenue reduction for both, according to county estimates. While the elimination of the commercial lease tax is final, Higgins and others who have been pushing for the Northeast Corridor rail project hope Perez will help Miami-Dade find other matching dollars when the Florida Legislature reconvenes at the end of 2025. Privately, multiple people involved in the talks say Perez has said he's ready to try to replace any dollars that the budget may have taken away from the Miami rail project. 'I presume the elimination was inadvertent,' Higgins said in her statement.
