Jesse Scheckner
Bad news for bus-reliant Miami-Dade residents who travel to and from the county’s southern end: The improved South Dade Transitway is now expected to open sometime in late Summer.
It’s the latest in a series of delays for the 20-mile route.
Construction began in 2021 on the route running from Kendall to the county’s southernmost municipality of Florida City on a dedicated right-of-way, dubbed the South Corridor. Once completed, it’s expected to provide Metrorail-like service featuring prepaid fares, level boarding, and 14 modern, covered stations welcoming 60-foot battery electric buses.
But that’s not happening until around the end of the season, the Miami-Dade Department of Transportation and Public Works (DTPW) told Miami Today this week. And there isn’t an exact date set for service to commence.
The news comes just over six months after DTPW said testing on fare collection boxes and syncing of gate-enforced intersection crossings were forcing the upgraded route’s opening date back by four months.
DTPW told Miami Today’s Abraham Galvan that testing of vehicles and major systems for the transitway are still ongoing.
Slow delivery of 100 electric buses the County Commission approved purchase of in January 2023 and bought six months later may also be a factor. DTPW interim Director Alex Barrios said in March that the county had received just 17 of the buses and the remainder “are due toward year’s end.” He noted that not all the vehicles would be for the busway.
Miami-Dade Commissioners approved the South Corridor renovation on Aug. 30, 2018. The cost then was estimated to be $243 million. Miami-Dade sought, and received, $200 million in federal and state earmarks.
The project has since undergone a few changes and run into obstacles, including the pandemic, that delayed it by three years and hiked its price by more than $100 million.
The South Corridor is the first of six commuting routes to receive full funding and an upgrade plan under the SMART Program Miami-Dade leaders adopted in 2016 to improve transit countywide.
While the SMART Program is now technically in its eighth year, many of the corridors it highlights for upgrades have long been contemplated. That includes the North Corridor, now planned to feature Metrorail service to Hard Rock Stadium near the Miami-Dade County line, which has been studied in one form or another since the 1990s.
Miami-Dade residents are hungry for better transit options. A nonbinding question on the Aug. 20 Primary ballot found 78.5% of voters think the county should expand its Metrorail, passenger rail and Metromover services.
But fulfilling that wish will be pricey. Miami-Dade Commissioner Oliver Gilbert, a past Chair of the panel and the county’s Transportation Planning Organization, estimated in December that expanding rail service countywide would cost at least $6 billion.
Other routes eyed for improvements include the Beach Corridor from Miami to Miami Beach, the East-West Corridor from the Miami Intermodal Center to Tamiami Station, the Northeast Corridor between Miami and Aventura on Brightline-owned tracks, and the Kendall Corridor between Dadeland and Krome Avenue just east of the Everglades.
