Showing posts with label Transit Miami. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Transit Miami. Show all posts

Monday, May 6, 2013

More Transit Policy Woes in South Florida: With stealthy and self-sabotaging friends like All Aboard Florida and SFRTA/Tri-Rail, pro-transit advocates in South Florida don't need any more enemies; 'All Aboard Florida' fails to schedule a single public scoping meeting in Broward County this Spring despite Fort Lauderdale being a proposed station, while SFRTA chief refuses to answer a simple question -Will Hallandale Beach have a station under the proposed Coastal line plan?; Just because you're pro-transit doesn't mean you have to ignore displays of transit incompetency or mismanagement when you see it!


Tri-Rail Coastal Link, partner56239248 YouTube Channel: Tri-Rail Coastal Link, Uploaded April 28, 2013. http://youtu.be/fFZR6ljK3og

And as if I didn't have enough to say about South Florida transit issues and the way taxpayers and customers are often taken for granted or treated in either a patronizing or condecending fashion by transit agencies or transit groups, it seems that Tri-Rail is guilty of engaging in historical revisionism, too, as caught by eagle-eyed writer Sean McCaughan, above and below below to devastating effect. 
Congrats to him for seeing the situation for exactly what it is and not being duped as they intended.

http://miami.curbed.com/
Tri-Rail Coastal Link Video Rewrites Miami's History, Gives Richard Florida All The Credit
by Sean McCaughan
Thursday, May 2, 2013, 
http://miami.curbed.com/archives/2013/05/02/trirail-coastal-link-video-rewrites-miamis-history-gives-richard-florida-all-the-credit.php

Below is a copy of an email I wrote and sent last Tuesday about the continuing communication and outreach problems afflicting some transit agencies and transit-oriented groups in the State of Florida, far too many of whom, it has been my misfortune to see over the years, have an often over-inflated image of their own role and influence in the larger scheme of public affairs.
Some even seem to live in their own world, where they set their own rules.

That's a fantasy world, of course, but sometimes, well-intentioned outsiders, like reporters or bloggers, are reluctant to pop their balloon and ruin the illusion they've created of being important.
A world where they're rarely if ever held to account by the public at large, and more specifically, by local taxpayers or residents affected by various transit plans and schemes.
Me, I'm not afraid of popping other people's illusions, so this blog post today should be read for exactly what it is -me bursting some bubbles.

That fantasy public policy world I've just described is what many of us who are paying attention think of as the bad side of South Florida policy, where some self-interested types with connections or degrees or letters after their names, often think their access to the public teat is unlimited, and can never be turned off.
This allows them, or so they think, to act with varying degrees of patronizing indifference and condescension towards the public and customers.
(Think The Beacon Council and MDX, for instance!)

As it applies to the world of public transit and planning and design, they're under the mistaken impression that people who generally are pro-transit, especially those in favor of long-range trains or short-range commuter trains, like me, will just pretend they don't see displays of incompetency, stupidity and arrogance when it's right smack in front of them.
Well, not me.

The email was sent to Broward County Commissioners Sue Gunzburger, Barbara Sharief, Chip LaMarca, Tim Ryan, Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jack Seiler, with a cc to Florida Dept. of Transportation (FDOT) Secretary Ananth Prasad in Tallahassee.

It was also sent as a bcc to well over a hundred interested parties located between here and U.S. DOT HQ in Washington, D.C., with multiple stops in Tallahassee, Orlando and Broward County, and, necessarily, included other South Florida mayors, city commissioners and city mangers, as well as to certain selected reporters, foundations, non-profits, transportation websites and bloggers.
Naturally, that list started with the great folks over at Transit Miamihttp://www.transitmiami.com/

As much as I'd relish the opportunity to ask the folks at All Aboard Florida face-to-face at this afternoon's 4:30 p.m. meeting in Miami -with my video camera rollinghow they square intentionally ignoring Broward County 's residents  with an honest effort to engage in outreach to the South Florida public, there's zero chance I will be attending it, since going into downtown Miami late in the afternoon is truly a fool's errand.
More so if you are starting from Broward County, even if, like me, you're just north of Aventura.

Besides, did you see where the geniuses involved have scheduled the meeting?
1600 N.W. 3rd Avenue, as show below in Google Maps.

What a great location for a transportation meeting!

Yes, in keeping with what apparently is the genius brains at work over at All Aboard Florida.
they've consciously chosen to NOT locate the meeting close to the FEC tracks they plan on using in the future,or, anywhere near where the most-likely customers of the service will be coming from, but rather in the Overtown/Culmer neighborhood of Miami.
Awesome!

For those of you who are reading this far from these shores, or, even those of you reading it closer-at-hand but not hip to that address, it's NOT exactly the safest place in Miami at the time when the meeting will be wrapping up at night.
Congrats for all the bad planning and bad outreach, folks!

Yes, hard as it is to believe, it appears that the folks behind this All Aboard Florida scheme seem not to have even considered the real possibility that prospective customers or taxpayers like you or me can support the overall goal, but NOT like or support going forward with it with the particular group of managers attached to it now, since they sure don't seem very smart or savvy in trying to get their OWN message out to people who would actually be supporters or customers in the future.
It's called knowing your universe.

(It's like the 'Florida Marlins' screwed-up marketing/outreach for so many years while they were playing at Dolphins Stadium near the Broward and Miami-Dade county line,  where, despite well over 60% of their season ticket holders living in Broward and Palm Beach counties because of the ease of the drive to the stadium via the next-door Florida Turnpike, the Marlins refused to show common sense and place a store or even small kiosks at nearby destination shopping malls like Aventura Mall or Pembroke Lakes Mall, where actual baseball fans and families go to shop.

No, instead, showing their customary arrogance and bad judgment, they had their one-and-only store located in Little Havana. Really.
Yes, the continuing myth of the Little Havana baseball fan dies hard.
But the reality was that those fans would listen to the games on the radio (in Spanish) and buy a Marlins ball cap every 5-6 years, but would only actually go to a game every few years. Look how well that worked! Thud

Good luck Marlins getting casual baseball fans who live in or north of Fort Lauderdale to head down to Little Havana with their kids on a Tuesday school night when the Padres and Rockies come to town!)

It's just like how beleaguered fans of the Dolphins or the Marlins can root for the players but NOT like or support their owners, and, frankly, rather hope that Stephen Ross and Jeffrey Loria meet their demise sooner rather than later, so that fans don't have to continue to be so conflicted with their emotions towards the teams.

Clearly if ignoring Broward residents on purpose is part of the All Aboard Florida playbook, it's NOT a Silver Linings Playbook, but rather one of a dog chasing its tail, over-and-over. A public policy story that some of us have seen played-out in South Florida for well over forty years already, with all the disastrous and logical results we see around us today as proof.

By the way, as of today, May 6th, 24 days since I sent that email to Joseph Giulietti, the head of SFRTA/Tri-Railabout prospects for a Tri-Rail Coastal commuter station in Hallandale Beach, I still have NOT heard from him or his staff. 
Too late!
My patience with him and their indifference to taxpayers has officially expired.

-----

April 30, 2013
1:30 p.m.

Do any of you have any idea why there isn't a single scheduled All Aboard Florida scoping meeting being held in Broward County, esp. In FTL, the only currently-announced prospective station in the entire county?

Prior to starting this email to you today. I checked their website and went through their archives, http://www.allaboardflorida.com/ to see if there'd already been a public meeting in Broward somewhere that I somehow missed out on hearing about.
I don't know, maybe something that took place while I was in Sweden back in mid-January, and ignoring everything locally right before my trip?
No, nothing's already been held in Broward -and there's nothing scheduled
for Broward in the near-future, either.
   
If you know the answer to this question or have a good guess, please let me know...

I'll be sure to mention this lack of common sense to anyone I know whom I run into at the Broward MPO's Commitment 2040 meeting at the Hallandale Beach Cultural Center on Thursday 

Somehow, I think they won't be surprised.
But then how could they be?

This screw-up with All Aboard Florida ignoring Broward County residents is just the latest in a series of completely inexplicable decisions involving transit in South Florida that make it hard for a longtime pro-transit advocate like myself to have much faith in either the "system" or the people who are supposed to be running and managing transit and transit-related issues in
South Florida, as well as public outreach.
They always find a way to let you down.

Over two weeks ago, for the second time, I contacted SFRTA/Tri-Rail to get them to say definitively, one way or the other, whether their current plans for utilizing the FEC tracks foresee a train station in Hallandale Beach or not, since their current plans on their website for a Coastal line state that Hallandale Beach will NOT have a station.

But we all know that there can always be closely-held but public information that they have which they have not yet chosen to place on their public website, which is why my email to them needed to be sent -to get the truth.

As you can see at the bottom of this email, I contacted SFRTA Executive Director Joseph Giulietti on April 12th to get his input, since he'd surely know better than anyone what was what.
And again, I'd already contacted them back in late January with this same basic questions, and never heard anything, which is how and why I specifically wrote to Mr. Giulietti earlier this month.

The response after 18 days: nothing from him, nothing from his staff -just lots and lots of NOTHING.

Like I said earlier, "They always find a way to let you down."

For now, just color me underwhelmed at the self-evident oversights that characterize South Florida transit, where, with the current cast of characters in place making policy decisions that affect lots of people and cities in this region, it's hard not to notice that taxpayers and customers almost always come in last.

DBS, Nine-year Hallandale Beach resident 
-----


This ad appeared in last Wednesday's Miami Herald.


Published in Miami Herald on Wednesday, April 24, 2013

re Prospective commuter train station in Hallandale Beach on FEC tracks; ULI's FEC Corridor mtg. on April 17th

April 12, 2013



Dear Mr. Giulietti:

I'm writing to you today on behalf of myself and a number of other very concerned
Hallandale Beach residents, business owners and SE Broward civic activists.

We are all greatly concerned that a tremendous opportunity is being lost due
to a lack of appropriate hard work, proper preparation and due diligence by
local Hallandale Beach elected officials, the current and past two City Managers,
as well as the HB Chamber of Commerce, whose reputation for myopia and
sloth continues to grow by the year.
So we are both concerned AND frustrated!

I'm a longtime public transit proponent, someone who personally used public
transit nearly every day when I lived in Chicago, Evanston and Wilmette in
the mid-1980's, and in the case of Wilmette, I lived on the very street, Linden,
that was the northern terminus of the El.
(Great in the mornings, with my choice of seats, not so great when
catching a train home after work in The Loop!) 

When I moved to the Washington, D.C. area in 1988, I used the Metro even
more than I had the El, and most of those 15 years I lived near the Ballston
Metro Station that was located one block away from the National Science
Foundationlocation they had chosen -just like me- specifically because
of its proximity to the Metro train system.

In total, roughly 18 years of consistently using a train just about every day
to get to and from work, to sporting events and culture and Reagan National
Airport, as well as to check-out places on weekends with friends that we'd
read or heard about, but never felt like driving to because of well-known parking
hassles.
I've personally seen up-close what works -and what doesn't- with
urban trains and why.

Since moving back to South Florida in 2003, I've consistently used my blog
and appearances at germane City, County, State, SFECC and planning
meetings to strongly encourage and advocate for the sorts of useful tools
for residents that I believe can create a positive business and Quality-of-Life
dynamic that's long been missing from South Florida.
Actually, one that has never existed here.

To my mind, the smartest and most-logical tool for positive change is the
creation of a well-managed commuter rail along the FEC tracks between
downtown Miami and West Palm Beach that's both efficient and easy to
access, but which also takes human behavior into account, esp. South
Florida's often frustrating counter-intuitive mindset.

That all said, what I'd specifically like to hear from you today is an answer
to a simple question that my friends and I can digest and think about in
advance of ULI's FEC Corridor meeting in FTL on April 17th, which I will
likely be attending with some friends and civic activists.

Based on all your knowledge of the situation, Mr. Giuliettiis it fair to say,
as I have publicly, that based on the current proposed plans made public
thus far, Hallandale Beach is NOT currently going to have even one train
station along the FEC route, regardless of who is operating it?

I ask because after years of attending SFECC meetings and closely following
all news articles and blog posts about the FEC, including the last two
South Florida Business Journal articles about you and the FEC Corridor
to say nothing of the current official Tri-Rail Coastal plan as it exists on
your website, where it has been for well over a year,
simply put, we need to know the truth.

The facts seem pretty clear to us -the plans do NOT currently show ANY
stops in Hallandale Beach.
Not one.

One of the reasons that we're very concerned about knowing the truth is
because in our opinion, esp. mine, Hallandale Beach City Hall's elected
officials and management have completely failed its residents and business
community by doing an absolutely abysmal job over the years of doing
their proper due diligence to make sure that they and this community
know exactly what's going on with this subject.
And, more importantly, are fully-prepared to do what is necessary
to use properly-located train station here as an economic ripple
that becomes wave of success.

In short, frankly, to just be the sort of normal place that I took for granted
while living in Evanston and in Arlington County, and have seen more
recently on a nine-day trip to Stockholm, where they combine fun and
functionality in often surprising and amusing ways that creates a real
dynamism & buzz.
And, a sense of place.

That's especially the case with small businesses currently located next
to and near the FEC, like the city's so-called Fashion Row, who have
seen the city's leaders and managers routinely get basic facts about the
FEC effort wrong, something I've witnessed too many times to mention
here, and which are always exasperating, no matter how many times
you've witnessed it.

When we've needed a modicum of logic and common sense, hard work
and attention to detail on this matter from HB City Hall, we've instead
gotten mis-statements, finger-pointing and spin.
Mr. Giulietti, at this point, we just want to know the truth.

Sincerely,
DBS
----------
Below, excerpts of recent emails I've sent to try to elicit more HB residents
and business owners attending Wednesday's meeting 

On Apr 2, 2013 1:43 PM, "DBS" wrote:
As you can see below, I saw another mention this morning of the FEC Corridor 
meeting on April 17th that I mentioned to some of you last night.
I also just noticed that Debbie Orshefsky is going to be the moderator.

I called ULI this morning, the host of the meeting, and was told that the meeting
room at the Sheraton Ft. Lauderdale Airport Hotel, which I've never been to
before, had a capacity of about 300, which is good, so it won't be in a cramped
"hospitality room" environment where you feel like your elbow is in someone
else's ribs even when you're sitting.
That is to say, exactly like my American Airlines flight from O'Hare to FLL
coming back from Stockholm in January, unlike the SAS part of the trip.

I'm also going to be posting ULI's info about the meeting on my blog on Thursday.

Dave


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Miami Urbanist
Date: Tue, Apr 2, 2013 at 8:03 AM
Subject: Miami Urbanist Updates

Apr 01, 2013 11:19 am | Felipe Azenha

----

Friday, December 9, 2011

Mass Transit reality check from Reason TV: 17 Miles in Just 78 Minutes! Light Rail vs. Reality in LA; backwards South Florida can hardly laugh at LA!


Reason.tv video: 17 Miles in Just 78 Minutes! Light Rail vs. Reality in Los Angeles. Watt Smith plays the role of guinea pig going from LAX to Burbank to see what's true and what's not re LA's Light Rail system, and discover's that even riders would prefer faster buses, not expensive and slow trains. December 2011.

Don't act so smug in watching this, South Florida!

As I've detailed previously here and in emails, blog and newspaper comments elsewhere over the years, when the Miami-Dade Metrorail system was in the development stages, wonky transit nerds and Good Government public policy types were completely out-muscled and out-hustled by the local taxi cab industry -and their campaign contribution$- which is why a Metrorail route between Miami International Airport -aka M.I.A.- and the downtown Miami business/legal area then on Flagler Street, and beginning to rapidly move south to Brickell Avenue, was NOT the very first route completed, like it would be in almost any other normal community that didn't have natural obstacles between them.
But in Miami, it didn't happen.

In fact, you STILL can't get straight from MIA to downtown Miami or Brickell Avenue entirely via Metrorail in the year 2011, can you?

And in Broward County, despite the name, Tri-Rail's Airport station isn't really at Hollywood/Ft. Lauderdale International Airport, is it?
No, it's a few miles away in Dania, and you have to take a bus to actually get to the airport.

And there's currently no rail service to Port Everglades and all the thousands of tourists and employees there to... anywhere.

(And who can forget all my many -fascinating!- blog posts here in the past about the lack of a bus at the Tri-Rail station closest to Ft. Lauderdale Stadium & Lockhart Stadium -Coconut Creek- where the Orioles used to have spring training, and the complete lack of a city or county bus or shuttle that goes directly from the Tri-Rail station to the City of FTL-owned stadiums when events are taking place there, despite it being well over a mile away?)

Yes, South Florida has really been blessed the past forthy years with lots of real geniuses in charge of public transportation!

To better illustrate these points, especially for those of you reading this now who live far from the heat and humidity -and sunshine- of South Florida, here are two excerpt of email I've sent
the past four years.

The first was sent to Gabriel Lopez-Bernal, the founder of the very popular public policy and transit-oriented blog, Transit Miami, back on November 7th, 2007.

Gabriel listed this blog on the Transit Miami blogroll a few months after I started it and the South Beach Hoosier blog, the latter of which will be seriously tweaked and improved by the beginning of the new year. http://southbeachhoosier.blogspot.com/

Dear Gabriel:
Per Larry Lebowitz's insightful article about the latest "only in Miami" controversy, around the North corridor of the extension of the Metrorail, something the Herald neglected to mention when discussing the issue of the U-M's move to Chez Huizenga, and your good take on the situation which I read just a few minutes ago, http://www.transitmiami.com/2007/11/could-north-corridor-be-threatened-by.html

"MIA got luggage carts when?" is going to be my new generic response to how things can be the way they are in South Florida.
For instance, the Herald suddenly discovering that there are no general interest bookstores within the City of Miami city limits.

Luggage carts at MIA? That happened like, what, just 4-5 years ago???

When I was still living the Beltway Life up in Arlington, I could get a luggage cart at the Reagan National Airport Metro exit just seconds after going thru the farecard taker.

Don't quote me on this, but I think they had luggage carts at Le Bourget Airport in Paris when Lindbergh landed in 1927


Come on, you know how long it takes for all the good ideas to finally make their way to Miami!
-----
Want more proof of the lack of common sense on transit?

Here's an excerpt from a 2007 email of mine to Broward County Comm. Sue Gunzburger, the Commissioner for my part of Broward, telling her about a series of problems I had noticed even BEFORE the County initiated a new -and long overdue- express bus service along U.S.-1/
Federal Highway called The US-1 Breeze.

The route starts south of me in Aventura at the Aventura Mall, come north thru Hallandale Beach, Hollywood, Dania, stops at FLL airport, and then continues to downtown Ft. Lauderdale, near the County and Federal Courthouse and Broward Schools HQ, ending at the Broward County Central Terminal on Broward Blvd., just around the corner from the Broward County Govt. Center.

Since this service started four years ago, if nobody I know wants to come along in my car, I take this when I need to go up to Broward County Commission meetings -or the Ethics Comm. meetings- so I can read the newspaper, listen to ESPN Radio and drink some Iced coffee and be there in less than 45 minutes for less than two bucks -and don't have to pay for parking:

1. Considering the amount of public back-slapping Broward County engaged in after they finally decided to create the #1 Breeze, an idea that should've been done 10-20 years ago, how is it that less than one week before the service actually began, there were still NOT any printed schedules for the Breeze service available on existing #1 buses, the natural constituency of a new line?
Could you possibly sabotage your own efforts any worse?

Actually you could, since there were no easily visible symbols of some sort on US-1 in advance, indicating where the small number of stops would be.
That was the icing on the Breeze cake for me.
As it happens, I spent quite some time investigating this, not only on the phone talking to customer service folks with Broward Transit, but also employing old-fashioned shoe leather, actually walking US-1. You know, the route involved.

Trust me, Comm. Gunzburger, whatever you are told by Broward Transit on this matter needs to be completely disregarded, because it could hardly have been more self-evident they didn't know what they were doing.
How botched was it?

Well, customer service people I spoke to at Broward Transit, just days before the service began, couldn't tell me with any degree of certainty where the stop(s) in Hallandale Beach were to be located.
Or, as it turned out, where the ONE stop in Hallandale Beach was.
The whole subject of the lack of a sufficient number of city-created bus shelters in SE Broward in HB and Hollywood, will be the subject of a future blog post here, though I've broached it here in the past.
I mention this because the north-bound stop in HB for The Breeze consists of two benches across the street from McDonald's -with no sheltered roof to keep you out of the rain or sun.
The one south-bound stop is roughly the same but in front of a gas station.

In the entire length of Hallandale Beach, along very busy U.S.-1, there is exactly one bus shelter on the north-bound side of the road, and it's just two blocks south of Pembroke Road, the cityline with Hollywood.
Welcome to Joy Cooper's Hallandale Beach!

-----

seventhmetro'd video: Los Angeles Metro: The past, Present and Future of LA's Mass Transit


From today's Transit Miami blog, relative to FDOT:


StrongTowns video: Conversation with an Engineer, Street Project

-----


Rail-Volution's 2007 Conference in Miami, Florida

Summary of Lake Worth Charette; Transit Oriented Development

Papers, Presentations and Highlights of other Rail-Volution annual conferences:

Creating a Positive Future for a Minority Community: Transportation and Urban Renewal Politics in Miami: By Milan Dluhy, Keith Revell and Sidney Wong




Thursday, June 4, 2009

Tomas Boiton is on the case!; South Florida Transit apathy



Palm Beach County civic activist and
Friend of HBB 
Tomas Boiton, the founder, head and heart of Citizens For Improved Transit, writes with news about a forthcoming effort of his scheduled for Monday, which ought to be of interest to all people interested in
making transportation smarter and more efficient in actually reaching the people who need it: taxpayers.

I've also copied the letter he sent along as an attachment and print it at the bottom, which is a letter Tomas sent to the Palm Beach County Commissioners.

But first, to help connect some dots and set up some later comments of mine, I want to share the following prescient piece from Orlando Sentinel ace reporter Aaron Deslatte, which he originally posted on their excellent Central Florida Political Pulse on April 7th.

I had hoped to post and comment on it back in April, but I had a problem when my computer froze-up one night, and moments later, BOOM, the power went out in my neighborhood for a bit.
Afterwards, I was so frustrated, I gave up on posting it, but have recently found a Draft of it from the day before, which I've since finished.

It presents a very telling tale of the elected officials involved in making important decisions for us and how truly ill-informed many are.
People are entitled to their own opinions, of course, but you first have to agree at the outset on certain basic facts and understand where the financial numbers are coming from before you develop your point-of-view, oui?
Or maybe that's just me.

Central Florida Political Pulse.
SunRail bucks get hand-cuffed in the Senate
posted by Aaron Deslatte on Apr 7, 2009 5:47:03 PM

TALLAHASSEE – Senate lawmakers on a powerful budget panel sparred for an hour Tuesday over a Democratic attempt to strip funding for Central Florida’s commuter rail project out of the chamber's proposed budget.
Problem is, they couldn’t find much.
At the Senate Ways and Means committee, Sens. Gary Siplin, D-Orlando, and Al Lawson, D-Tallahassee, offered an amendment to the budget to divert $491 million out of the state Department of Transportation’s budget for road projects to fund a handful of others they said had been diverted due to the SunRail project.
“We’ve had $600 million that’s been sitting there for three years. It’s a disservice to the people,” Lawson said.
------------------------
Wow!!!
I think it's fantastic that in the year 2009, the Florida legislature is full of people who STILL don't know how FDOT is actually funded.
Perhaps in the future, Senate and House committee assignments could be based totally on test performance of standardized tests on Florida govt. history, along with essays on how FL govt. is supposed to work according to the FL State Constitution.
Their own FCATs.
And reveal the results LIVE on TV, like the NFL Draft!

That sort of stupidity is almost as great as the sheer apathy and laziness shown by so many elected officials and pompous public policy types from South Florida in February, based on the paltry number of them who actually showed-up in person at the regional Transportation Summit in Fort Lauderdale on the 21st.
Nothing quite says lip service like folks acting all concerned with transportation policy and Quality of Life issues when being interviewed by reporters, but then skipping the chance to appear at an informative Saturday morning event where actual concerned South Florida citizens are present and accounted for.

Plus there was a great speaker like Gordon Pricof Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, the noted Smart Growth expert, who made a truly fantastic presentation that had most attendees wistful as they watched it, and even more angry than they expected
at seeing once again how much worse this area is than it ought to be compared to other places.

Mr. Price flew across North America from beautiful Vancouver to deliver a powerful message in Fort Lauderdale, and I made time to make the relatively short trip up to the Broward County Convention Center to hear him - and was very glad I did, as many other attendees told me as well.

(These were the exact same well-informed people who asked me over the couple of hours I
was there, with evident concern in their voice, if I, too, had noticed the same changes they had at the Transit Miami blog. http://www.transitmiami.com/
Changes which they uniformly thought were very much for the worse.
Had I noticed TM not even mentioning the very Transportation Summit we were all at in advance -or have anyone attendand the extent to which it had become become something of a combination Biker newsletter and very bitter social screed.
Yes, sadly I had.)

Based on her pathetic track record and apparent fear of actually interacting with knowledgeable taxpayer citizens, instead of the govt. officials and trade groups she clearly
prefers to interact with, which I've written about here before, I completely expected FDOT Sec. Stephanie Kopelousos to be a no-show.
She didn't disappoint, so her non-appearance was NOT exactly Breaking News.

But where was my own State Rep., Joe Gibbons?
Or my State Senator, Eleanor Sobel?

Gibbons, the former Hallandale Beach City Commissioner who now acts oblivious to all the self-evident unethical and incompetent activity taking place here in HB, happens to be the ranking Democrat on the House Transportation and Economic Development Appropriations Committeeand yet was a no-show that morning, as were South Florida
Senators Alex Diaz de la Portilla and Chris Smithboth of the Senate Committee on Transportation and Economic Development Appropriations.

Nice going!
Way to represent!

The folks who actually attended the Summit won't soon forget who all the no-shows were.

Well, among the few elected officials who actually WERE there was SFRTA Governing Board Chairman and Broward County Commissioner Josephus Eggelletion, Jr.,
http://www.broward.org/eggelletion/ and http://www.tri-rail.com/, and Palm Beach County Commission Chairman Jeff Koons,

I spent some time talking to Comm. Koons in FTL and found him to be not only EXTREMELY well-informed and conversant, but also someone who was clearly
very conscientious and possessed of a good sense of humor, someone who didn't take himself so seriously.

I'm no expert on Comm. Koons, but my initial sense of him, after previously reading articles and columns on him and now finally meeting him was that we could use a couple dozen clones of him here in Hallandale Beach and Broward County, as well as in Miami-Dade
County, where part of the larger problem is is the dozens and dozens of people who take themselves FAR TOO SERIOUSLY.

For examples of this, see WFOR's I-Team report A Spending Tale of Two Counties

People like Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper to name but one glaring example, who continues to think so highly of herself -despite her awful track recordand thinks you ought to as well,.
In fact, she thinks so highly or herself that she asked HB City Manager Mike Good to find money in the city's budget to create a brand new office for her at HB City Hall, despite the fact that there was nothing physically wrong with her existing one.

No matter!
She said "Jump!" and he said "How high?" and it was done and completed in January for about $3,700.

So, with that all said, here's the letter Tomas wrote so you could know what's going on, too.
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Your support is needed to minimize the $4 million budget cut to Palm Tran and save Tri-Rail. Effects will greatly impact the $5 monthly bus pass program and Senior Transportation Services!
Last year the commissioners put an additional $1 million dollars back into Public Transportation because advocates came out to the meetings! We can do it again!
Join Citizens For Improved Transit at the
County Budget Workshop
Monday June 8 at 1:45 p.m. (will last about 1 hour)
P.B.C. Governmental Center - 301 N. Olive Ave., W.P.B. 6th Floor
(RSVP to this e-mail if you or an agency representative is able to attend)
Please also put on your Calendars to attend budget meetings on July 13th, September 8th and 21st
The time when public transportation comes on the agenda is determined a week before the meeting.
It is also very effective to make phone calls, write letters and send e-mails and tell your experiences. See the attached letter to get information on the issues:
THE ISSUES (See Attached letter for further details and attachment for All proposed cuts and fare increases)
1. Maintain the $5 price for the TD bus pass for everyone living below 150% of the poverty level or if absolutely necessary create a sliding scale fare system so individuals making less then $1,000 per month will stay at $5 and raise the price to $7.50 for individuals making between $1,000 and $1,353 per month.
2. Instead of funding the ADA program with money currently designated for the DOSS program in order to charge for the transportation service, the same funds should be used to reinstate the County Senior Transportation program with new criteria
-- The eligibility age raised from 60 to 65 or 70
-- Amount of trips limited to the funds available
-- Trip destination limited to medical, employment, grocery stores and meal sites, and socialization trips to adult daycare centers
-- Qualifying seniors can not have a driver’s license or car registered in their name
-- The cost of the fare be based on a sliding scale: Seniors living:
- below the poverty level of $902 per month pay $3 per round trip
- between $902 and $1,354 pay $4 per round trip
- above 150% of the poverty level pay $6 per round trip which is the same fare the ADA program would charge.
3. Provide Tri-Rail with the minimal required funding obligation of $1.6 million and set aside an additional $1.25 million in reserves that will only be allocated to Tri-rail if:
-- Broward and Miami/Dade make the same financial obligation
-- The state contributes the remaining $3.75 million regional short fall in addition to the funding used to match the counties contributions.

CALL TO ACTION: It is essential Transportation Advocates attend and Nonprofit Agencies send representatives and clients to the meetings to stress the importance of Palm Tran, Palm Tran Connection and Tri-Rail on peoples lives.Not everyone will be asked to speak put we are looking to have a large attendance. Nonprofits please make sure to send at least one representative from each agency to the budget workshop this up coming Monday at 1:45.

Please pass on this e-mail to get the word out.

RSVP to this link: Citizens For Improved Transit or call 561-249-4181

E-mail the county commissioners today at BCC-Allcommissioners@pbcgov.org to say that Public Transportation Services are essential and should not be cut.


June 1, 2009

In regards to: Palm Tran Budget, Tri-Rail, Palm Tran Service Board

Dear Commissioners:

With the high cost of living in Palm Beach County and the scarcity of employment the populations effected the most by the current economic environment include seniors, low income earners, the unemployed, and the mentally and physically disabled. Palm Tran and Palm Tran Connection are the only form of transportation for many of these individuals to access life sustaining destinations.

The proposed Palm Tran Budget will significantly impact the quality of life for these vulnerable populations. Citizens For Improved Transit wants to ensure the commissioners are aware of the consequences of some of the proposed changes and alternative solutions that can still reduce the budget and provide for the transportation disadvantaged.

Transportation Disadvantaged (TD) Bus Passes:
This proposed change will have the greatest impact on the transportation disadvantaged by raising the cost of the TD bus passes 300% from $5 to $15 for individuals and families that live below 150% of the federal poverty level or less then $1,353 per month. Many of the families who are eligible for the TD bus pass live far below this level and cannot afford the additional $10 per month per family member. Approximately 7,000 people use the Transportation Disadvantaged Bus Pass program on a monthly basis which is about 20% of the fixed route riders.

Citizens For Improved Transit’s Recommendation
Maintain the $5 price for everyone living below 150% of the poverty level or if absolutely necessary create a sliding scale fare system so individuals making less then $1,000 per month will stay at $5 and raise the price to $7.50 for individuals making between $1,000 and $1,353 per month.

The county has only one distribution site for the TD bus passes at the Palm Tran Connection Lake Worth facility. It is advised that the secretarial position proposed to be terminated at the Palm Tran West Palm Beach office be changed to administer the sales of the TD bus passes. Since it will only be one position it is advised that registering for the TD program still be done in Lake Worth. The use of the WPB facility as a distribution site was proposed by Palm Tran staff but was sidelined due to lack of funding for a additional staff position. Currently the Lake Worth office is running at capacity with sometimes over 200 people coming a day.

Transportation Cuts to Seniors
According to the 2008 Palm Beach County Profile there are over 365,000 seniors over 60 living in Palm Beach County. Nearly 25% of these seniors live alone. The Division of Senior Services (DOSS) program provides transportation for seniors to receive one nutritious meal a day and simultaneously provides for socialization for those who would otherwise be isolated in their homes. Palm Tran wants to roll the DOSS program into the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) program. Under ADA Palm Tran can charge $6 per each round trip.

The problem with this is based on Palm Tran’s calculations, 15% of the current DOSS meal trips go to low income seniors that do not qualify for ADA trips. For the seniors that do have a qualifying disability Palm Tran estimates an additional 15% can not afford the $6 daily roundtrip cost. Based on discussions with a DOSS representative, Citizens For Improved Transit is confidant the number of seniors who will not be able to access the meals because of the additional $120 per month increase will be significantly higher.

Citizens For Improved Transit’s Recommendation
Instead of funding the ADA program with money currently designated for the DOSS program in order to charge for the transportation service, the County Senior Transportation program should be reinstated with new criteria:
  • The eligibility age raised from 60 to 65 or 70
  • Amount of trips limited to the funds available
  • Trips destination limited to medical, employment, grocery stores and meal sites, and socialization trips to adult daycare centers
  • Qualifying seniors can not have a driver’s license or car registered in their name
  • The cost of the fare be based on a sliding scale: Seniors living
    • below the poverty level of $902 per month pay $3 per round trip
    • between $902 and $1,354 pay $4 per round trip
    • above 150% of the poverty level pay $6 per round trip which is the same fare the ADA program would charge.
The new criteria will ensure seniors who do not have a qualifying ADA disability do not become isolated and can access life sustaining destinations. The current Palm Tran Connection trip scheduling software is already separating clients based on income and charging $2 instead of $3 for eligible riders. This subsidy is also proposed to be eliminated.

Tri-Rail
South Florida’s long term future growth necessitates mass transit of which Tri-Rail is the backbone. Tri-Rail has broken numerous ridership records, putting it among the nation's fastest growing commuter trains. Even as gasoline prices have dipped, the majority of passengers who flocked to the train when prices spiked to more than $4 a gallon last summer have continued riding with 4 million passengers last year, 22.9% more than in 2007.

Supporting funding for Tri-rail will continue a path of progress by:
  • Supporting economic development and smart growth planning as county and regional master plans have been developed around Tri-Rail infrastructure.
  • Improve quality of life by decreasing traffic congestion and the perpetual need for costly road expansions. Tri-Rail reduces 3.5 million car trips per year on I-95.
  • Contribute to a cleaner environment with 102 million less car miles on I-95.
Palm Beach County is required to contribute $1.6 million towards tri-rail which is $2.5 million less then its 2009 funding level of $4.1 million. In jeopardy is the future of regional transportation in South Florida and the stimulus money that is expected to be dedicated to rail transportation. The South Florida Region will not be eligible for the funds if it defaults on the federal funding used to create tri-rail.

Citizens For Improved Transit’s Recommendation
Provide tri-rail with the minimal required funding obligation of $1.6 million and set aside half of the $2.5 million shortfall (an additional $1.25 million) in reserves that will only be allocated to Tri-Rail if:
  • Broward and Miami/Dade make the same financial obligation
  • The state contributes the remaining $3.75 million regional short fall in addition to its matching funding.

Palm Beach County’s budget will be completed before Broward and Miami/Dade. Taking the leadership role will pressure the other counties to do the same and then put the ball back into the state’s court. If the criteria are not meet the county keeps the funds in reserve.

Sincerely,

Tomas Boiton
Citizens For Improved Transit, Founder
Transportation Consultant For Nonprofits
Office: (561) 249-4181
Fax: (561) 207-7763

Tboiton@Comcast.net
1406 Flagler Boulevard
Lake Park, FL 33403
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful,
committed citizens can change the world.” - Margaret Mead