Metromover To South Beach Moving ‘Expeditiously’

Miami-Dade is advancing with plans to extend the Metromover to South Beach, according to Miami Today.

The county plans to move forward “expeditiously” with the project, according to Josiel Ferrer-Diaz, who is the Deputy Director of Miami-Dade’s Department of Transportation and Public Works.

The comments were made at a meeting of the Citizens’ Independent Transportation Trust.

Plans are moving forward despite a vote by Miami Beach’s Commission opposing the project.

Two stations are planned on 5th Street in Miami Beach, at Lenox Avenue and Washington Avenue.

An extension to the Design District is also being planned.

 

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anonymous
1 month ago

PLEASE GET THIS BUILT, Miami desperately needs a robust transit network

Amanda B. Reckondwith
1 month ago

There are hundreds if not thousands of busses that Miami Dade Transit operates on their robust transit network.

This small MetroMover ride to nowhere will operate on the EXACT same path as 100’s of buses. Except, this proposed $1Billion train stops at a CVS.

Not a Convention Center, or City Hall, or Beach, or anything more useful than the CVS on the otherside.

One Billion Dollars. ESTIMATED.
At least the I395/I95/I836 On Billion Dollars will allow for cargo to travel on it, and ambulances, and school buses, etc.

This idea will just put Rideshare drivers and bus drivers out of work.

Anonymous
1 month ago

Except buses are effectively no benefit to people with cars (the vast majority of Miamians) as they get stuck in the same traffic as cars. Tourists aren’t riding buses.

Not one bus driver or rideshare driver will be put out of work by this. Improving our infrastructure is never a bad thing.

Anonymous
1 month ago

Neither is a tin can shortbus with little capacity and low speed. It needs to be Metrorail or streetcars.

Anonymous
1 month ago

Yes, I’d have much preferred MetroRail. However, this is a good measure for the time being – better than nothing – and Metromover is one of the best performing peoplemovers in the world.

Jason
1 month ago

Those are interesting points.

With point #1. I disagree.
Living on Hibiscus Island for so many years, I paid my help very well. They would take the bus from Miami and step off at Fountain Blvd. and walk to the house. There is terrific benefit to me with a car…I didn’t have to go pick them up. With this Metromover, it costs $1Billion changes nothing.

With point #2.
Improving infrastructure can be a bad thing. Students of history (especially if they paid for a _____________ Studies degree) will swear that the I-95 Infrastructure improvement through the middle of Overtown was a bad thing.

The tourists that Miami Beach wants are not taking busses OR government trains.

Daniel Antone
1 month ago

Not true in the least bit, the tourists and WORKERS notice the 3rd or as the immigrants say 4th world conditions that exist here in Miami. Nobody is happy.

Voltaire
1 month ago

Those are the students that use words and phrases like C@pitalism is bad, oppression, oppressors, colonialism, intif@da, while living the good life in America.

Anonymous
1 month ago

You obviously live in a bubble. I work in a hotel and many, many people use transit to get there, not to mention 80 per cent of the cleaning ladies.

Daniel Antone
1 month ago

Those few busses that the metro mover will move on are complete crap with bus drivers (100 route) regularly abandoning their routes late at night leaving workers stranded and getting fired from their jobs! Wake up.

Amanda B. Reckondwith II
1 month ago

Thank you for your feedback. If you are so concerned, then dont ride it.

Anonymous
1 month ago

Busses get stuck in traffic, metromover doesn’t

Anonymous
1 month ago

Metromover and robust are two words that should never be in the same sentence. I’m all for rail transit to Miami Beach, but Metromoober should not be an option, period.

Anonymous
1 month ago

Every time this micro d loser types in “Metromoober” thinking it’s the most hilarious or clever thing and that he’s convincing people.

Yet in reality, all you’re accomplishing is revealing yourself as the resident schizo that somehow escaped the padded room

Anon
1 month ago

How about MetroLoser? There, feel better pind!ck?

Anonymous
1 month ago

Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning!

Anonymous
1 month ago

Agree that miami needs usable massive transit but not along this causeway, we need it to reach mount Sina (Miami beach’s biggest), the convention center and the big convention center hotels like fountainblu. Ending in 5th st is horrible cause to connect to all these other places hay really could be used by the people who work there they would need to jump on to
A third mode of transportation to get there, it doesn’t really take you anywhere! If it’s true that they are building it to design district and midtown it would then make more sense to connect along the Julia Tuttle, MacArthur causeway has been under construction for far too
Long, also It’s iconic and these pylons and 80s heavy looking form of transportation would ruin this scenic road, and by the time this ugly thing gets built it will be more archaic than it alteady is….

Anon
1 month ago

Yay! This is the best thing for Miami and Miami Beach. It will alleviate traffic and make both areas more desirable. People are going to go back and forth regardless so might as well make it seamless.

Anonymous
1 month ago

Like… three cars off the road per train. Get real…

Jason
1 month ago

Yeah…..why not spend One Billion Dollars on this.
Afterall, money just grows on trees, right?

Native Floridian
1 month ago

Connect at 300 Alton Rd, next to Monty’s.
Don’t destroy 5th Street.

BDub
1 month ago

Run the new line up Biscayne and across 36th to meet the Design District extension while you’re at it, please.

Margaret
1 month ago

Also a line to the Port, it would alleviate the traffic downtown so much!!

Seb
1 month ago

This would be genius.

Amanda B. Reckondwith
1 month ago

???
Most of the PortMiami traffic uses the One Billion Dollar PortMiami Tunnel.

Anonymous
1 month ago

Which creates unnecessary traffic for people that live on the beach. Most of the people taking the tunnel don’t really know where they are going which is incredibly frustrating for the rest of us.

Anonymous
1 month ago

Brightline is covering that already. But of course, you want your free airport APC to buy thousand-dollar Gucci goods and trip to a booze cruise.

Anonymous
1 month ago

People need to stop thinking about people want to ride this to shop and eat and think about the people who work at these locations

Mr. NoHearBaloney
1 month ago

25 years from now, they’ll be saying the same stuff

Amanda B. Reckondwith
1 month ago

Because they were saying the same stuff 25 years ago?

You are correct sir.

Anonymous
1 month ago

Please put a stop on Watson Island.

Margaret
1 month ago

100% agree with this!!

anonymous
1 month ago

The developers of Watson Island should be pushing for this. See no reason why taxpayers have to foot the bill for somethign thatwould directly benefit a private developer

Build the Metro
1 month ago

Get the link to the Design District built ASAP and extend the beach line up Washington Ave to the Convention Center. I’d love to see it go up to Mid Beach at 41st but it needs to get to Lincoln Road at a minimum

Anonymous
1 month ago

Extend Metromover to Disneyland.

Build the Metro
1 month ago

Only if you take it there and never come back!

Anonymous
1 month ago

This is fantastic. Would have loved for it to be MetroRail, but this is absolutely better than nothing – better than any stopgap bus system either.

Miami only has 3 paths forward: 1) build more rail transit, allowing growth while not significantly increasing congestion, 2) stop growing, or 3) keep growing without transit expansion, causing congestion to get worse. #1 is the only reasonable option and should be (and I think is) a nonpartisan issue. 80% of Dade County residents voted for it. Let’s get it done!

Jason
1 month ago

Does it ever occur to you and the team that workshopped the “Only 3 paths forward” thesis, that for the last 40 years, 1) not much “more transit” has been built. 2) Miami has been growing consistently and more vigorously than cities with subways and 3) Ummm…..keep growing without transit expansion.

My guess is that you are not older than the MetroMover.
You and your peers are 100% off.
The city is growing rapidly. The budget is balanced. Life is great. New jobs are incubated. Education is getting better. The cultural offerings are getting better. Etc. Etc. Etc.

What if, adding Government trains (to the tune of ONE BILLION DOLLARS) upsets a formula that is quite fine?

Anonymous
1 month ago

Traffic is getting to unsustainable levels. Just ask anyone that actually has a job and pays taxes or tries to get anywhere around Dade county during the week. Not corrupt leeches that exist to shill for politicians pocketing the money and letting Miami’s infrastructure fall behind.

Build the trains. It was a mistake not building more when they were cheaper, and it’s an even more foolish mistake not learning from history and delaying it even further.

Anonymous
1 month ago

Every great city of the world has multiple modes of transportation to get around. I love driving and I personally rarely ride transit, but I understand the benefit of having robust infrastructure in a city.

If we want Miami to look more like London and less like 3rd world chaos, we have to build more public transportation. The other options, as I said, are either to continue to be choked by congestion or to stop growing. It should NOT take 90 minutes to get from Kendall to Brickell.

La Prohibida
1 month ago

This would be a dream come true. With our skyline and that infrastructure in place Miami would be an over the top first class city. I’m so happy to know that it’s moving forward notwithstanding the fact that the Miami Beach commissioners sold their souls to the wealthy vociferous minority of the South Of Fifth area. I’ve been a South Of Fifth resident since 1996 and I’ve been dreaming about being able to take the metro or the bay link to the mainland for a long time. The residents voted for the baylink circa 2002. I would love to see the dream of the vast majority come true.

Anonymous
1 month ago

World class. Metromover a.k.a. unsheltered individual urinals. Lawl…

Jason
1 month ago

Wow…
These are your dreams?!? A MetroMover to CVS?

Anonymous
1 month ago

Wasn’t the design district extension supposed to built at the same time as the beach extension? I could have sworn they were both part of the “beach corridor” in the original smart plan.

Downtowner
1 month ago

Would it be easier to have it link from an already existing station, such as Arsht Center or PAMM, instead of building a new Herald Plaza (transfer) station? I imagine the project would be finished more quickly that way.

H. Wilma
1 month ago

Good catch. But also there was supposed to be a new station there anyway for the resorts world thing. That section of track is the longest without a station anyway so if only there was something there.

Alex
1 month ago

Right, I’m supposed to land at MIA, use the MeteoMover to the MetroRail to the MetroMover to the MetroMover Miami Beach to the Miami Beach Trolley? Five transfers for 13 miles?

Jason
1 month ago

It will cost you $32 in a Uber from the arrivals door at MIA to the front door of your South Beach hotel, if you are a loner.
if you have one friend $16.
If you have 3 friends, about $11 door to door.

If you are one of the Miami intelligentsia, someone else pays ONE BILLION DOLLARS to go from MIA to Washington and 5th Street, and you pay another $8 for an Uber or to drag your luggage to your hotel. All along the way, you think to yourself, “What were these idiots thinking when they built a slow train to Washington Avenue and 5th Street???”

Anonymous
1 month ago

I would just Uber directly… MetroMover should be kept local since it moves at a snails pace. You could probably walk faster to the beach vs. using the mini train.

Anonymous
1 month ago

My sentiments exactly! Make it make sense. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Anonymous
1 month ago

You expect there to be any logic when there is no logic to expand a system beyond what it was designed for?

Anonymouse
1 month ago

So about 20 /25 years ago there was a discussion about running trams , BTW much faster and more comfortable ( take a ride in many cities around Europe ), than the Slugo Metromover down the Mc Arthur causeway ,all the way the the convention center ,with the possibility of extending it up the beach to the point of logical distance.
No overhead wires , the system was self contained.
After much money was spent on research , the old beach NIMBIES with the ample help of populist beach politicians , nixed it ,as is the case with any following proposals/solutions. ( And the city halls were so glad, since they did not have to spend the money on a silly thing ,like public transportation.)
The big question is ,what makes you think ,that they will agree with prominently visible Stone Henge
up and down the causeway ?

Anonymous
1 month ago

Spoiler alert. This won’t happen and it’ll be millions more down the toilet.

Anonymous
1 month ago

Humorous word “ Expeditiously”, when this has been discussed since the early 1990’s if not earlier.

wanderer34
1 month ago

I’d rather see the Metrorail extended to South Beach and the rest of Miami Beach, as opposed to the Metromover, and the only reasons are that the Metrorail is faster than the Metromover, it’s much higher capacity with a four-car train set as opposed to the Metromover train set, and since the Metrorail fare costs $2.50, and it’s a 5-mile trip between Downtown Miami and South Beach, the best application is extending the Metrorail to South Beach, since a trip would help fund MDT while the Metromover, since it’s free won’t do that!

Anonymous
1 month ago

I see a lot of folks saying metromover isn’t the answer. They are doing a huge overhaul of the system including new cars that will allow more than one car to run on the Brickell loop. Having said this, not sure that the metromover today would look the same as the one you see downtown (even that one is overflowing during rush hour and on event days). And with them choosing metromover to go down Flagler all the way to FIU potentially,, I am guessing it will be something closer to what we have the airport. Or i would hope.

Ya Tu Sabes
1 month ago

Design the Metromover to be more sleek, modern and more capacity and faster. Then I’ll be good with it

Anonn
1 month ago

I know the tunnel costs would be extremely expensive, but running it over PortMiami instead of MacArthur would at least provide some high-demand destinations in-between. And it’s not just for the cruise passengers, but the ship crews during turnaround days, port employees, RCI HQ employees, etc.

Anonymous
1 month ago

Always making some stupid comment about how it should be done instead for a mint more than what the city is willing to pay. Always trying to make Miami like the North East. GO AWAY ANON

Margaret
1 month ago

And once you get to Miami Beach you walk?!? We need the Metromover to also run from South Beach to North Beach to make it a true success. Even start charging, it doesn’t have to be free. Make it $2 per ride and create a monthly membership for locals, $100 or something, nothing crazy.

Anonymous
1 month ago

Miami Beach is incredibly walkable and has an amazing free trolley service running all over the island already.

Amanda B. Reckondwith
1 month ago

True.
Miami Beach is amazingly walkable.

Additionally, the walk/ride/drive across the MacArthur is amazing and beautiful.

Amanda B. Reckondwith
1 month ago

The MetroMover has been operating in Downtown Miami since about 1985…

Is it a success 39 years later?

Maybe we need to just give it a chance….
And ANOTHER ONE BILLION DOLLARS.

Anonymous
1 month ago

Yes, it’s a success. You’re an idiot.

Just Do It
1 month ago

It’s a great success actually!

BeachResident
1 month ago

It’s long overdue. I’m glad that my snobby neighbors a few blocks away didn’t get their say in stopping this.

Anon
1 month ago

It’s not happening. However, lots of money will be spent on studies anyway.

DowntownVagabond
1 month ago

Extending the mover to Edgewater, Wynwood and MidTown should be a much bigger priority and Miami Beach should be second or third.

Miami Upper East Side
1 month ago

Why not expand the Metrorail instead????

Anonymous
1 month ago

It would make too much sense and rattle the onesies of every trust fund brat who doesn’t know how to pay for a train ticket.

Anon
1 month ago

That would cost even more than this government pork boondoggle.

Tom
1 month ago

Urban development/redevelopmet is good development, development of natural areas and farm areas is not…Ty urban developers

Jeremey Howlett
1 month ago

I think the best option would be to extend the metro rail from the Earlington heights station east along I195 with a new subway station at Biscayne Blvd & 195, then take the metro rail underground cross the bay and have underground stations in Miami Beach at Mt Sinai, Meridian ave. @ the convention center, 13th street @ Flamingo Park, 5th Street and Meridian ave., Then cross under the channel with stops on the port of miami, Cruise terminal, and then back into miami with a station at American Airlines arena, and finally the last stop at historic over town station. This plan would solve all of the areas transit issues.

Jeremey Howlett
1 month ago

Other great benefits of this plan is that thousands of cars will be removed from highways. Uber and Lyft drivers can stay within Miami Beach shuttling people from stations to hotels for a flat rate. This alone will drastically cut traffic on all bay crossings. Of course he best part of this plan will be designing the worlds greatest subway stations. Michelle oka Donner could do her signature terrazzo flooring with brass inlays.

Kurt
1 month ago

Do you mean run it down Meridian Ave from 41st St

Jmh
1 month ago

Under ground beneath the golf course and meridian ave.

H. Wilma
1 month ago

Could an airport to beach connection finally be the tipping point? Ridership is still very low compared to 10 years ago. It started falling in 2015 to 2019 way before covid.

Amanda B. Reckondwith
1 month ago

Uber has an exceptional Miami International Airport to Miami Beach link, and it takes from the front door of MIA to the front door of your hotel.
No need to lug your luggage through trams and escalators, and connections, only to land in front of the CVS on Washington and 5th Street.

Amazingly, Uber exists already.
AND
It does not cost another One Billion Dollars (estimated by bureaucrats)

Anonymous
1 month ago

Uber gets stuck in traffic. Uber is expensive – extremely expensive at peak times.

Jason
1 month ago

More than One Billion Dollars?

Anon
1 month ago

and Uber is fully paid for by its users, unlike MetroLoser

but hey, can’t beat those public subsidies for your wants, right?

Anonymous
1 month ago

Except Uber is not “fully paid” by its users. Ubers use roadways and infrastructure that is paid by… you guessed it, the tax payer. And when Ubers add to congestion that is already practically choking the city… that cost is passed on to people and businesses in the form of fuel and delay costs. No, nothing is free, but money can be used in more efficient ways to encourage economic development.

Anonymous
1 month ago

Even the airport APC is more advanced than tin can shortbus Metromoober, and what make more sense being extended to downtown, the port, and beach.

World Emperor
1 month ago

Glad that my orders were finally attended to

Anonymous
1 month ago

This needs to be metro rail not mm. Capacity wi be an issue

Use logic.
1 month ago

All of this is illogical. Metro rail.already runs close to Wynwood , Midtown and the Design District. Extend a new line, basically straight down 36th St, or close by. and then down the Julia Tuttle Causeway all the way to the convention center, cutting across the golf course, and stopping at the Hospital on the way. You may have to buy out some home near the golf course but that’s going to bring a higher speed rail to the convention center and connect the system to down town and beyond. I’m not saying the idea of some type of rail connecting down town to S Beach isn’t a good idea, just that it’s inadequate for our population and the needs. If they widened the shoulder on the McArthur, they could accommodate a ground level light rail, a pedestrian walkway, and a bike path from downtown to S. Beach. Time to think big. This is no longer a shit town with a beach. This is a major city with real transit needs. Both projects are desperately needed. Oh and did I mention the new metro line suggested would also connect the airport, also in desperate need of a total revamp, to the convention center.

Kurt
1 month ago

There should be rail across the Julia Tuttle t9 at least Mt. Sinai, but there is no was this will be constructed on Alton Road, or near the golf course or any other residential area. Also there is no way Metrorail would be built across 41st St in Miami Beach

Anonymous One
1 month ago

Come on where is the study? You gotta have at least 3, come on, Florida style, let’s get some studies underway.

Native Floridian
1 month ago

Connect at 300 Alton Rd. Don’t destroy 5th Street.

Clark
1 month ago

Destroy 5th Street?? what is on 5th street that’s worth preserving??

Martino
30 days ago

This is a poignant reminder that Miami Beach residents’ ownership stops at the threshold to their properties. They should be powerless to stop public infrastructure projects just because they want Miami Beach all to themselves.

Jeremey Howlett
1 month ago

Miami Beach is a world class city that deserves a proper subway system with underground tunnels and large clean stations that can handle 10 car trains. It’s sad that these people rooting for the MetroMover want to sell their city out.