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Posts under ‘Metromover’

My Love-Hate Relationship with the Metromover

Last night, after several bottles of wine the conversation turned to the Metromover. At the table were several colleagues from my office. We all have at the minimum college degrees, so I think it’s fair to assume that we are of at least average intelligence.   Dario, a Londoner, explained to me that the first time [...]

DawnTown 2009: Metromover!

Announcing DawnTown 2009: Metromover!  DawnTown is the annual international architecture competition for Downtown Miami.  This year’s topic is a new station for Downtown Miami’s elevated public transportation system, Metromover.  Full contest details are at www.dawntown.org.
Registration is open to all, and closes October 14, 2009.  The jury includes:

Terry Riley, Director [...]

Service Alert: Metromover Down

The outer loop of the downtown Metromover stopped dead in its tracks early this morning, according to this article.  Apparently, the service halt is due to a problematic switch.
Let’s hope MDT engineers can twist the right lug nut, or what have you, and fix it.

Miami’s Newest Garage Mahal

Miami worships parking. Indeed, we can’t seem to build an urban building without smothering it with suburban parking requirements. Usually this comes in the form of parking as base or parking as appendage. The garage under construction above — an appendage if I have ever seen one — is located at Northwest Third Street, directly [...]

Miami World Center Passes City Commission

According to this recent press release, the Miami City Commission has approved the Miami World Center, an ambitious nine block, 25-acre redevelopment project slated for the Park West neighborhood, just north of Downtown. The glitzy pictures streaming on the project’s website promise a very sleek, but pedestrian-oriented district that, if nothing else, will transform [...]

The week in transit

A lot happened this week behind the scenes and between the lines. Here is a review:
Kudos to this editorial today from El Nuevo Herald columnist Daniel Shoer Roth. I think he did an excellent job in highlighting how mismanaged our transit system is. Accountability goes out the window when ten different departments and municipalities are [...]

The State of Miami Transit

The County Commission decided to delay its vote Tuesday on the proposed transit hikes. I commend Carlos Jimenez and others for seeing that the issue had to be reconsidered. As Gabe mentioned earlier in the week, the monthly pass really needs to be consistent with the size/reach of our transit system (not higher than NYC). [...]

Commission’s View of Parking is Misguided

This is a joint letter Ryan and I submitted to the Miami Herald’s Op Ed section and to the city of Miami Commission regarding last Thursday’s vote on the Empire World Towers proposal:

Commission’s View of Parking is MisguidedBy: Gabriel J. Lopez-Bernal & Ryan Sharpwww.TransitMiami.com

As transportation [...]

Mid-Week Miami News

Image Credit: John Vanbeekum

The obvious headline story today is Miami-Dade County’s decision to purchase 136 new rail cars for metrorail due to MDT’s prior negligence in maintaining the existing fleet (WTG Roosevelt! I’m so proud of that name clearing hearing the County held in your honor.) Larry Lebowitz wrote a phenomenal Herald watchdog report [...]

The Biscayne Wall Blunder

Speaking of curb cuts, I was passing along NE 2nd Avenue and was completely disgusted to experience firsthand the atrocities permitted to occur on the backside of the buildings facing Biscayne Bay. The term Biscayne wall is quite fitting as the backsides of these towers were clearly designed to resemble the blank slate of [...]

Transitography 51: Museum Transit

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Transport, originally uploaded by blupic.com.

I was scanning through images on Flickr, when I came across the Tram which transports visitors to the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. I couldn’t help imagine what [...]

Miami Streetcar vs. Monorail: A Brief Comparison

As our friend Verticus from MVB discussed in our recent post on the Miami streetcar, a monorail system would prove to be a slightly more efficient transit system than a streetcar- if you were comparing the modes strictly on that level. Looking at it strictly as a Transportation engineer, as Verticus has suggested, I [...]

New Mover Cars

A Glimpse of the new Metromover cars soon to hit the downtown rails:

Transitography 31

The little engine that hopes it can. It remains to be seen if the Metromover will prove to be, at least the first link in a more effective chain of public transport for the new residences in downtown. The glacial pace of transit progress for Miami seems impossible to influence. But at [...]

Metromover Upgrades

The Metromover overhaul promised to voters in the 2002 PTP is finally scheduled for completion in March 2008. Some of the vehicles, in operation since 1986, are slated to be replaced by modern Bombardier vehicles, similar to the one pictured above. The remaining vehicles will be (have been) undergoing repairs in the downtown [...]