Miami-Dade mayor keeps Metrorail top-of-mind for U.S. Transportation Secretary in Miami

With U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg visiting on Wednesday to talk about the Biden administration’s investment in PortMiami, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava also had a project on her mind that has yet to receive federal money — the long awaited North Corridor Metrorail expansion.

In introducing Buttigieg, Levine Cava mentioned the effort to make the elevated rail project a reality.

“If I didn’t already have the North Corridor on my mind when I got here, the mayor made sure that I’m going to have it on my mind as I leave,” Buttegieg told reporters Wednesday morning at PortMiami.

The effort to extend the Metrorail north up 27th Avenue is estimated to cost about $2 billion. The county expects to spend the next year to 18 months working on design and engineering with the Florida Department of Transportation, but hopes to eventually seek as much as half that money from the $1 trillion infrastructure law that President Joe Biden signed in 2021, with the rest coming from state and local sources.

“These processes are very competitive, but Miami Dade and this community have demonstrated that they have been able to often succeed in very competitive processes,” said Buttigieg.

In her remarks, Levine Cava said Black communities in North Miami-Dade have waited too long for the promise of expanded public transportation.

“We do have a pending proposal, and we’re extremely hopeful that we have checked all the boxes, that we will get the support,” said Levine Cava.

A Broken Promise

An elevated rail to north Miami-Dade County — first floated in the 1970s — remains one of the more notable failed promises made to South Florida voters. Residents near the county line were promised Metrorail in 1978 as the county pushed a voter referendum to fund elevated rail, but costs soared and plans were scaled back. Most recently, a North Corridor Metrorail extension up Northwest 27th Avenue was part of the transit plan pitched to voters in 2002 when they approved a half-percent sales tax for transportation projects.

Were it built, the proposed north line would be the first expansion of Metrorail since the Miami International Airport station opened in 2012.

The county plan calls for eight stations between the existing Martin Luther King Metrorail Station at 62nd Street and Northwest 215th Street, just north of Hard Rock Stadium. Under an approach adopted last November in an effort to make the project more competitive for federal money, Miami-Dade would initially build the elevated rail line just to the stadium, with the seven other stations coming in a second phase.

According to Miami-Dade County officials, the county has been working regularly and closely on the project’s design with the state — which owns the 27th Avenue right of way — dating back to last November’s vote.

‘Addressing past disinvestment’

Speaking to the Miami Herald later on in the afternoon at Miami International Airport, Buttigieg said that past successful applications for federal funds were projects that demonstrated “some combination of safety, economic opportunity, climate benefit and/or equity benefit.”

“Economically speaking, it’s one of the best things that we can do to make life more affordable for people and even open up new kinds of options in terms of where people can live and where people can work,” Buttigieg said.

Buttigieg warned once again that such programs are “extremely competitive,” adding that most applicants aren’t awarded funding the first time around. Levine Cava noted that this is Miami-Dade County’s second attempt at winning the grant money and that county officials had learned from the last application.

Levine Cava said that Miami-Dade County is asking the federal government for $1 billion for the North Corridor Metrorail project, adding that she believes that the undertaking squares neatly with the Biden administration’s stated goal of directing funding toward projects that would increase equity in underserved communities.

To make its case for the funding, Levine Cava said, the county is leaning heavily on the notion that the North Corridor project will fuel commercial and residential investment.

“We think we’re in good standing for it,” she said. “It’s resilient, it’s equitable, it’s addressing past disinvestment for the northern part of our county.”

Levine Cava said that Miami-Dade hopes that the 2026 FIFA World Cup — which will be held in cities across Canada, Mexico and the United States, including Miami — will help accelerate the funding request.

“I took this opportunity to make sure Secretary Buttigieg understands why the North Corridor is so critically important for a community that has seen years of disinvestment, and how the project aligns closely with President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill — which is expanding infrastructure investments more equitably across communities nationwide,” the mayor, a Democrat, said in a statement. “My administration is working closely alongside Board Chairman Oliver Gilbert and our state and federal partners to move this project forward as quickly as possible, so we can bring residents the safe and reliable transit network they deserve.”