Miami-Dade County opens Miami Beach transit link for bids
kept its monorail plan alive Wednesday when Miami-Dade County commissioners accepted the casino company’s proposal to launch a bidding contest for building a taxfunded transit system across Biscayne Bay, linking Miami with South Beach.
County Mayor Carlos Gimenez revealed details about Genting’s plans just ahead of the vote, saying the Malaysian company and partners agreed to waive some confidentiality protections in order to combat misguided media coverage of the confidential proposal.
Gimenez said Genting wanted to swap land in Miami for a new monorail, Metromover, and bus station that would be built on or near the casino company’s waterfront property in Miami. Local and state governments would pay about $240 million toward construction of the $400 million system, and the county would pay the monorail operator an annual undisclosed amount for operations that he suggested would be in the millions. The Genting partnership known as the Miami Beach Monorail Consortium would put up the rest of the money, Gimenez said. To speed the process, no federal grants would be sought.
“It’s a viable solution,” Gimenez said of the plan, which is backed by a ChiGenting nese monorail manufacturer and a company formed by two leaders of the mayor’s 2016 reelection campaign. “But all we’re asking today is that we open a competitive process.”
In a 9-3 vote, commissioners approved Gimenez’s request to launch a bidding process sometime in the fall. Genting and rivals would then have six months to respond to the county’s request for proposals. After the deadline, the county could accept one of the proposals or reject them all and start again.
The timeline should push the county’s decision to pick Genting or a rival until after a Miami-Dade consultant finishes a $10 million study of the best transit system to link Miami with Miami Beach. Miami-Dade has been studying options for a “baylink” transit system since the 1980s, and some commissioners said they welcomed a private company offering to jumpstart the process.
“I’ve come to the conclusion that 31 years is too long to wait,” said Commissioner Eileen Higgins, who represents the part of Miami Beach where the monorail line would end.
Gimenez said he wanted to limit the Beach bids to the three transit options under study by the Parsons engineering firm. Those are monorail, rapid-transit buses (which use dedicated lanes and group boarding to speed bus service), and an extension of the county’s existing Metromover system in Miami.
Commissioners Jean Monestime, Xavier Suarez, and Rebeca Sosa voted no. Commissioner Barbara Jordan was not present. She is in Asia as part of a delegation with the Transportation Planning Organization looking at transit options, including the monorail that Genting partner BYD operates in China. Sosa raised concerns about Miami-Dade turning to a company with China ties for a transit project.