End of the line for Wave streetcar plan?

Construction bids that were higher than the state’s maximum appear to have derailed Fort Lauderdale’s Wave streetcar system proposal and given wary city officials the opening they needed to back out of the project.

New construction bids unveiled Thursday appear to have derailed Fort Lauderdale’s Wave streetcar system and given wary city officials the opening they needed to back out of the project.

State transportation officials tried to lower the project’s cost by reducing its scope. But the new bids were still higher than the $142.5 million maximum that would have allowed the state to move forward with the streetcar system.

The low bid of $144.7 million was submitted by the Prince Contracting, Delta Railroad Construction group. A second bid, $154.8 million, came from the Stacy & Witbeck and Her- Contracting group.

Broward Mayor Beam Furr, who supported the project in the past, said he sees the new bids as the end of the line for the downtown streetcar project.

“I would be very surprised if there’s any support for it at this point,” Furr said. “I will be getting together with our county attorney to see what our next steps are.”

The light rail streetcars would have run on or near Andrews Avenue from Northeast Sixth Street to Southeast 17th Street.

Fort Lauderdale’s newly elected commission was already on record wanting to abandon the project, even though the previous commis-

sion had pledged its continued support in February.

Upcoming decisions

City commissioners will hold a previously scheduled workshop Monday to review options. They plan to vote on the Wave project at their meeting Tuesday.

Mayor Dean Trantalis and commissioners Steve Glassman and Ben Sorensen pledged during their recent election campaigns that they would vote to kill the project.

“This project was never right for Fort Lauderdale and we need to pursue other mass transit options. This gives us the opportunity to do so,” Trantalis said.

The state’s selection committee is scheduled to meet May 3 to review the bids, but the state’s Wave project manager, Robert Bostian, said he is not sure what happens now.

When last year’s bids came in ranging from $188.7 million to $218 million, the selection committee rejected them and the county and state agreed to seek new bids. Neither the county nor the city may be interested in continuing now.

The Wave’s total current budget is $195.3 million, with $114 million allotted for construction. Officials were willing to go 25 percent higher on the construction budget, to the $142.5 million figure, but Thursday’s low bid was $2.2 million above that maximum.

If the project proceeds, the additional $30.7 million would have to come from the state, county, city and the city’s Downtown Development Authority.

Glassman said it appears the low bidder tried hard to get their proposal to the $142.5 million figure.

“It’s very telling that it was that close and they couldn’t get it closer,” Glassman said.

Future county mass transit

The Wave’s demise could impact future mass transit plans in the county just as commissioners are preparing to ask voters to approve a penny sales tax increase — from 6 percent to 7 percent — to fund 30 years of county transportation and transit projects.

The county’s current plans include about 27 miles of light rail that would run west out Broward Boulevard to Sawgrass Mills mall and along State Road 7 and University Drive. The Broward Boulevard project can still bring people into downtown without the Wave being there, but some commissioners are questioning the viability of light rail given the resistance to the Wave.

“I think it gives us a chance to take a fresh look at all options,” Furr said of the bid results. “Even the staunchest opponents of the Wave profess to be advocates for mass transit. I’m going to take them at their word on that.”

Stan Eichelbaum, a downtown resident and leader of FLAW, Fort Lauderdale is Against the Wave, said his group is for sensible mass transit and would like to see new alternatives that can be implemented quickly.

“We wanted out of the Wave. We would love to see the money repurposed to a ‘right’ transportation system,” he said, though he’s not certain what that would look like.

“The world of transportation is changing so dynamically,” Eichelbaum said.

Possibilities include small electric vehicles heading out to the beach, medium ones that service neighborhoods and larger ones connecting to county routes, he said.

Autonomous vehicles could be part of the mix. One size doesn’t fit all, he said.

For all the concern about downtown traffic woes, the Wave was never supposed to relieve congestion. Instead, it was an economic development tool to attract projects to downtown.

“The goal has to be not on how we’re going to stimulate development, but how we’re going to mitigate traffic concerns,” Trantalis said.

He has been in touch with federal transportation officials in Washington D.C. about using the money for other mass transit projects better suited to the city.

“There are other technologies that are being implemented in other parts of the country and other parts of the world,” Trantalis said. “We can have a streetcar system that is run without wires and without rails. In some cases, they’re even driverless.”

As for the developers counting on the Wave, Trantalis said there “may still be a transit system that will follow the path of the redevelopment sites, but it’s not going to be the Wave system.”

Next steps

Developer Alan Hooper, who has built projects in Flagler Village along the Wave route and who is chairman of the city’s downtown authority, said he hopes a real transit alternative surfaces. He paid $8 on Uber to go five blocks on Wednesday, he said.

“I hope it can be done quickly so we can deal with the traffic issues that we face downtown,” he said. “At night, [Flagler Village is] very disconnected from Las Olas and the center of downtown. It’s extremely dangerous and scary to walk to downtown.”

If the Wave project does not go forward, there’s still the question of what happens to the money it received and how much will have to be repaid. The $195.3 million project includes $82.7 million in federal funds, $52.7 million from the state, and $59.9 million divided between the city, the downtown authority, downtown property owners and the county.

More than $23 million has been spent on the project already and officials can’t say how much — if any — will have to be reimbursed. Trantalis said he hopes his city staff will have some of those answers at Monday’s workshop.