A Sharp Eye on Mass Transit
Miami-Dade County commissioners are considering tax hikes to fund their crumbling mass transit system. County taxpayers have been there before. In 2002, after rejecting four previous proposals for transit tax hikes, they approved a sales tax. Now, in an outstanding series called "Taken for a Ride," Larry Lebowitz of The Miami Herald examines the results.
In 2002, voters were promised up to 88.9 miles of new Metrorail lines, stretching to every corner of Miami-Dade County. As it stands, you'll be lucky to get 2.4 miles.
County leaders promised 17 million miles of new bus service. They never got close.
Promising "New Money for New Projects,'' the 2002 campaign, led by former county Mayor Alex Penelas, vowed to bring Miami-Dade Transit into the 21st century if voters approved a long-sought sales tax.
But five years and more than $800 million later, the county has spent more than half the new money on routine Transit operations and maintenance while adding 1,000 jobs to the payroll.
…. Metrorail runs fewer trains than it did in 2002. Half the bus service that was added has been subsequently cut. And studies indicate that your commute is no brisker than it was five years ago.
Meanwhile, county managers have decreed that they can spend transit-tax proceeds in hundreds of ways -- buying everything from paper clips and polo shirts to cockroach extermination. The tax even paid for $2 million in office furniture for Transit's new headquarters in Overtown.
Links to the series' main sections are near the top of the home page, http://www.miamiherald.com/multimedia/news/transit/index.html