Trust calls halt to being only county piggybank for South Dade transit hub

The trust that safeguards Miami-Dade’s transportation tax spending threw up a Stop sign last week to being used as the only piggybank for a project that it had made clear for years it would not fund all alone.

As trust members were asked to recommend that county commissioners approve a $245 million contract to build a South Dade transit operations center for which the trust would provide the full amount, they dug in their heels and unanimously voted No.

The vote by the Citizens’ Independent Transportation Trust did not oppose the massive center to service and charge 100 new electric buses, 44 of which are for the new South Corridor bus rapid transit system from Dadeland to Florida City. Instead, it came with a plea for help that the county find matching funds for the trust’s money, as is done on every other major transit project.

The trust’s No vote is more than symbolic but far less than final. Had the trust voted Yes it would have taken a majority of county commissioners present to approve the contract. With a trust No vote it will take nine of the 13 commissioners to approve the contract.

The project is eight buildings totaling 400,000 square feet on nearly 20 acres at Southwest 127th Avenue and 288th Street to service the county’s 100 new articulated electric buses, none of which has yet arrived from the manufacturer. Timing is ultra-tight on the buildings, which have not been begun but are to handle the buses for a corridor that is to start operating next March.

“There’s no question in my mind that this facility is needed, and I don’t have a problem with the price tag,” said 14-year trust member Joseph Curbelo. “What I take issue with is that it’s being 100% financed by PTP (transit surtax) funds without any matching state or federal funding…. I’d rather delay the project and go out for additional funding than to 100% fund it from PTP funds.”

Though the project in the formal five-year plan for years has come with the proviso that the county seek matching funds, Javier Bustamante, assistant director of the Department of Transportation and Public Works, said the county never sought matching funds. “The project from the beginning and entered into the PTP plan was strictly surtax funded,” he told the trust under questioning.

Trust chairman Robert Wolfarth noted that when the trust first approved helping to fund the center “it started off in in fiscal year 2000 a $56 million project. The year after that it grew to $167 million. And now it has grown up to $268 million,” including a $23 million construction engineering contract for the buildings that the trust did support at the meeting. Meanwhile, the site coming from the county for the project has shrunken from 40 acres to under 20.

Mr. Wolfarth also pointed out that only 44 of the 100 buses are for the South Corridor and the rest are for existing operations. “So why should PTP funds be paid exclusively for this operations center when it’s not being exclusively services for the electric buses that are going to be servicing the South Corridor?” he asked.

The county advertised the contract to build the center in December with an expectation that work will begin in May on an expedited schedule. The first phase – a 130,000-square-foot charging building and a separate electric power station – is scheduled to be finished next March, the same month buses are supposed to start serving the South Corridor. Construction on the other six buildings is to run into 2026.

“Being in the real estate industry myself in the private sector,” said Mr. Wolfarth, “I think that’s very aggressive to have a project that is still in the development phase to be ready to receive buses for electric charging, a building of that magnitude, in one year.”

The entire contract for all eight buildings is 800 days.

Mr. Wolfarth noted that a value engineering study on the buildings recommended substantial savings in 42 separate suggestions in an 83-page report.

A transit department consultant estimated nine to 12 of those had been acted upon. Many others were not undertaken because of time constraints as the county seeks to fast-track the project.

In a continuing theme, the trust complained that the county had been slow to answer questions about the project and had not answered some completely. Some answers arrived the day of the meeting, too late to study.

Seeing the direction of the trust’s questions and its resolution to ask once again for matching funds, transportation chief Eulois Cleckley asked about the request for other funding. “Is there a time clock here or is there an expectation that we’re to delay and stop this particular project until we seek matching finds?”

“We don’t want to delay the project,” Mr. Wolfarth replied. But he added that “In the five-year plan we’ve always stated that this particular item should be matched with federal and state funds so it was always the position of the (trust) to match funds the same way we did on other corridors. Our intention is not to delay it. Our intention is make sure that we leverage the surtax dollars to further all of these other corridors that are very important for all of Miami-Dade County … so we can make more out of the money. That’s our position.”

Added Mr. Curbelo, “We have a federal administration that seems to be very generous with transportation infrastructure funds. I think there’s money out there to be had.”