Take the stairs: Why Miami-Dade County can’t get this Metromover station elevator fixed

Maria Hernandez had no choice but to climb the 49 steps at a Metromover station where the elevator has been down for a month and the escalator has not worked since last fall.

“It’s so inconvenient,” Hernandez, a house cleaner, said Tuesday after the two-story climb to the platform at the Adrienne Arsht Center station in Miami. “And I have problems with my feet.”

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Chronic issues with broken elevators and escalators in Miami-Dade’s transit system resulted in finger-pointing and frustrated riders as the county tries to manage aging infrastructure and private vendors hired to keep it running.

Metromover, a network of automated shuttle cars snaking along Miami’s business districts, and Metrorail, which runs trains in and out of the city, use elevated tracks. Those stations need elevators, escalators and stairs to get passengers to the platforms from street level.

A Metromover escalator out of service for a year

Schindler, an elevator maker headquartered in Switzerland, has the county contract to maintain the Arsht station equipment as well as the eight other transit elevators and escalators closed for repairs, according to a summary the Department of Transportation and Public Works released Tuesday.

The longest running repair problem is an escalator at the Eleventh Street Metromover station, which went out of service in April 2022. While it’s listed for repair by July 31, the summary shows there are no parts available yet for the project.

The Arsht escalator stopped working on Oct. 22, according to the summary, and the elevator broke down on April 18.

Schindler, in a statement, pointed out that most of the more than 130 elevators and escalators it services for the county’s transit system are working properly. The isolated breakdowns come from equipment Miami-Dade has declined to replace, despite warnings from the company that the escalators and elevators “are way past their useful life.”

‘Old, outdated equipment’ says Schindler

“We are currently awaiting county approval to replace this old, outdated equipment with equivalent current models that are fully code-compliant and will offer the Metromover’s passengers a vastly better, more reliable, safer ride,” Schindler spokesperson Kim LaCava said.

Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said her administration is considering that request while pressing Schindler to move quicker on getting existing problems fixed. She said the county is considering shuttle services and other transit options for people who can’t climb stairs to bypass some Metromover stations altogether.

“We are working with Schindler, obviously, to get these repairs done quickly,” Levine Cava told reporters Tuesday afternoon in front of the functioning escalators at the Government Center transit station. “They have made some proposals for the replacement of elevators. We have to look at if that’s the best course. Obviously that’s a huge capital investment ... If that is necessary, we will do it.”

Most escalators and elevators work in the county’s transit system, which is funded largely through property taxes and a special sales tax dedicated to transportation.

The Miami Herald went to 45 escalators and elevators in the Metromover system on Monday and found six that weren’t working: elevators at the Arsht and Fifth Street stations, as well as four escalators at the Arsht, Eleventh Street, Financial District and School Board stations.

Elevators have been a source of friction for Levine Cava. Last year, she fired Oracle, another major elevator company, from its countywide contract after allegations of safety problems at Miami International Airport elevators it managed.

Oracle denied the allegations and called Levine Cava’s move a favor to a union that had failed to organize Oracle workers. The MIA contract went to Schindler, which has a unionized workforce in Miami.

Comparing the two situations, Levine Cava said safety issues sparked the Oracle move, while Schindler is only facing issues with delays on repairs. Schindler has been paid more than $120 million on a county contract since 2007 for elevators and escalators at transit stations, PortMiami and other county facilities.

Levine Cava’s remarks followed complaints on social media about delayed repairs at Arsht. A sign on the shut elevator doors once promoted a fix date in late April — now it says June 15. On Twitter Monday, an elderly couple was seen climbing the station stairs, her hand on the railing and seeming to lean on him for support.

‘It really breaks my heart,’ Levine Cava says

“We understand the hardship,” Levine Cava said. “It really breaks my heart to see it and read about it.”

For now, announcements on Metromover warn escalators and elevators aren’t an option at Arsht and encourage passengers who can’t use the stairs to stop at another station.

The School Board station is about six blocks away, and the elevator was working there this week. The escalator was not.

Levine Cava said her administration is considering bypassing Schindler to acquire parts on the open market, as well as shifting to using county employees to keep the facilities maintained.

A broken elevator essentially closes a transit station for people using wheelchairs and walkers. “I’m used to it now,” Harold Smith said as he pushed his friend, Budisma Scott, in a wheelchair as they exited a Metromover car at Government Center.

While the elevators work at that station, Smith said he’s fatigued by facing outages as the pair make transit trips around Miami from their home in Miami Gardens. “I can’t depend on this place,” he said.

Hernandez makes four transfers in her two-hour commute from house cleaning in Miami Beach, where she takes a bus to the Arsht station for a Metromover ride to Metrorail, then hops on another bus for her final ride home to the West Kendall area.

Yeda Braziller, a nanny, also was taking Metromover to Metrorail when she huffed up the stairs in a hurry to catch the next car heading downtown. The Arsht station overlooks a bus depot that connects many of the county’s northern neighborhoods with the Metromover system.

Braziller used to jog up the escalator to speed her arrival, but now that’s not an option. “I miss the train all the time,” she said.