Also check out an article at The Ledger that includes Senator Mike Bennet of Bradenton suggesting that the money spent on SunRail would be better spent buying a car for each of the 3,500 riders predicted to ride SunRail the first few years. I know the government is now in the auto business, but really now—how ignorant can you get?

Don’t vote for these guys in the next election.

Right now our state legislators are debating whether or not to pass a law that would allow Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade County to reallocate 80 percent of the money that is generated by an existing surcharge of $2 per rental car per day from funding for road building projects to funding for the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority (SFRTA), the agency that runs Tri-Rail. The 80 percent equals about $41 million per year, which is enough to fund Tri-Rail operations at current service levels. If passed, the counties could reduce their funding levels from current levels to the federal minimum levels, thus reducing their general obligations. Without the portion of the rental car tax, each county will still cut their level of funding and so will all the matching agencies, forcing Tri-Rail to drastically cut back on service. It appears that the rational direction to take from the perspective of the south Florida region is to establish the dedicated funding source for Tri-Rail. There are several reasons.

• First, from a fiscal standpoint, we as taxpayers paid $265 million to improve the CSX corridor by double-tracking to increase train capacity. The cuts in service Tri-Rail would have to make without a dedicated funding source would mirror the pre-double-tracking schedule. Clearly, this inconsistent with the investment we made to improve the CSX corridor.

• Second, even with proposed fare increases looming for riders, Tri-Rail is a fiscally wise choice for commuters as gas prices will continue to rise over the long run due to the constricted supply of oil. It’s a fact that the world has reached peak oil production so the temporary lull in gas prices we see is just that, temporary. Saving money on commuting gives riders more money to spend in the local economy.

• Third, after 60 years of post WWII experience with unending road building and suburban sprawl, we now know that it is impossible to build our way out of congestion by continually widening roads or building new roads. Many traffic engineers, the very people who used to advocate for wider roads and better “levels of service,” now believe that the answer to increasing mobility is multifaceted and includes balancing land uses and providing alternate forms of transportation other than the single occupant vehicle.

• Fourth, every rider that takes Tri-Rail is one less car on I-95 so there is an incentive to non-Tri-Rail users to make Tri-Rail as successful as possible. A recent study (http://www.ceosforcities.org/blog/entry/2169) shows that even a slight reduction in rush hour vehicle trips on the roads can result in a large decrease in congestion. Tri-Rail isn’t the right transportation choice for everyone and it won’t ever be the right mode of transportation for everyone but it is for many people and we must provide the alternative. The consequences to riders and non-riders is a decrease in quality of life; less frequent service to riders equals longer waits for trains and less free time, while riders who are pushed into driving congest the roads for drivers already there, making commuting times even longer.

• Fifth, a trip taken on Tri-Rail pollutes less than a trip taken by a single occupant vehicle. What kind of world would we be creating for ourselves and the next generation by not funding Tri-Rail?

• Sixth, taking a trip on Tri-Rail is safer than driving. Why set policy that moves people from a safer form of transportation to one that is increasingly more deadly?

• Seventh, a fully functional Tri-Rail expands the job markets for Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties. For example, people living in Palm Beach County who could not or would not drive to Miami can consider jobs in Miami knowing they can take Tri-Rail. When job markets are expanded, everyone wins.

• Finally, everyone’s quality of life has a vested interest in seeing Tri-Rail succeed. Let us imagine a world where every car and truck and train runs on solar energy, no emissions from any form of transportation and the technology was inexpensive so everyone could afford a car. This would be great for the environment and many detractors of mass transit would argue that mass transit would no longer be necessary. But if we all drove single occupant solar cars, would we still be stuck in traffic? Of course we would. Our quality of life would still suffer because we would still be wasting time in traffic jams. That’s why the answer to the problem of pollution generated by transportation/congestion is not a singular answer of “build less polluting cars.” It has to include mass transit as a component of a regional transportation network.

Individual transportation is unfortunately something that is subject to the dilemma of the “tragedy of the commons.” The classic example of the tragedy of the commons is a group of fisherman who fish the same waters. If each fisherman acts only in accordance with what benefits his own economic situation the most (catching as many fish as possible each day), the entire community of fisherman will eventually suffer because the waters will be overfished and there will be no fish left for any of the fisherman. It therefore behooves the fisherman to act collectively, imposing limits on themselves as individuals so that everyone prospers in the long run.

With individual transportation, driving a single occupant vehicle is clearly the most convenient mode of choice (if a car is available but, converse to convenience, a car is the most expensive). However, when everyone drives a single occupant car we know what the results are, crushing congestion and pollution resulting in a loss of quality of life for everyone. The “commons” are in this case the collective quality of life for society as measured by commuting times, pollution, disposable income, access to wider job markets and increased personal safety. We live in the fifth largest metropolitan region in the United States. We cannot cut funding to our regional mass transit system in a time of increasing ridership and increasing gas prices when we know that a trip taken on Tri-Rail means less pollution, more money in the local economy, more access to jobs, less congestion on the roads and is safer and reduces our need to build more roads.

Submitted by: Matthew Barnes

Passenger Rail in Florida is vital to the economic future of this state. The federal government has presented a tremendous opportunity for states to leverage their money for rail corridors. Locally in the Miami metropolitan area both Tri-Rail and Metro Rail are both suffering from a lack of support for maintenance and new corridor development. Statewide rail corridors have been studied since Governor Lawton Chiles’ administration before being undercut by the Bush administration.

I urge you to support dedicated funding for Florida’s passenger rail service through the state legislature. This includes existing services such as Tri-Rail that have shown that passenger rail service in Florida is vital to the economy of a region. Tri-Rail ridership has surged as facilities have been upgraded and double tracking allows consistent train schedules and capacity upgrades. The state would never build a one-lane road and ask cars to please wait on the side every few miles to allow others to pass.

Regional rail is not for the local transit agencies to fund or run. These are regional systems using different technologies over larger areas. Additionally a state agency similar to the Turnpike Enterprise should be formed to create the Florida High Speed Rail network. Lastly local transit projects should be prioritized to link into these systems and create an interconnected grid of passenger rail for Floridians.

Please support dedicated funding for RAIL IN FLORIDA. Our state and localities competitive future depends on it.

Send a message of support for dedicated funding to your elected officials in Tallahassee, log onto www.tri-rail.com/FundOrFail

Sincerely,

Transit Advocates of Florida

First up we’ve been hearing talk of a fare increase, and the amounts have been made official: 25%. So the cheapest one-way fare will rise from $2 to $2.50, while the monthly pass will rise from $80 to $100. The increase has yet  to be approved, so stay tuned for news of  a public hearing which the Sun-Sentinel reports will take place on April 24.

SFRTA, Tri-Rail’s parent agency, is also announcing plans to reduce weekday trains from 50 to 30 and drop weekend service entirely beginning October 5, if no dedicated source is found. Like last year, Palm Beach County has already said they will reduce their funding of Tri-Rail from $4.1 million to $1.5 million, and the great imitators in Broward and Miami-Dade County would follow suit for some strange reason. (Can someone tell them they don’t have to do what Palm Beach County does? They could fund Tri-Rail more and let Tri-Rail just reduce service in Palm Beach County if it comes to that.) No one’s come up with any new ideas for a funding source since last year. The controversial $2 rental car surcharge is still being floated as the solution to their funding woes.

A few more minor, but equally interesting details include the fact that Tri-Rail will be tweaking their schedules in an attempt to keep their trains on time. The Palm Beach Post reports how they also just dumped their law firm that had helped them lobby for the $2 rental car surcharge. Get this—the firm also lobbied against the $2 rental car surcharge for Enterprise. If the law firm were a Palm Beach County Commissioner, they would be in jail for that!

To combat these forces that seek to effectively shut down our commuter rail service, sign the “Fund or Fail” petition at Tri-Rail’s website. You can scream now.

Read the Miami Herald article on the subject here. One phrase in the article that nearly makes me shiver with delight is that “meanwhile, the U.S. auto industry is on the verge of collapse…” While I wish it were the case, the statement is rather sensationalist. If they declare bankruptcy they will not be collapsing, just restructuring.

Meanwhile, gas prices continue to drop, so we can only hope these changes last.

I, for one, can’t wait until next week when I get to ride a train that smells like french fries. It’s got to be better than the diesel fumes that assaulted ones nose every time a train pulled in to a station before.

These shuttle buses are a crucial part of the Tri-Rail service, as the stations themselves are generally far from employment centers. The buses, funded by the county, provide the final link to work or home for many Tri-Rail riders. Until we get Tri-Rail service on the FEC tracks that pass closer to city centers, they provide the best connections. County bus service is not timed to the train schedules and often uses longer routes to get to key locations. Take the Fort Lauderdale airport, for instance. Right now we have a nice shuttle bus providing service from the Fort Lauderdale Airport station to the airport terminals. Without the shuttle, the alternative would be to wait for Broward County Transit Route 4, then transfer to Route 1 at US-1. I don’t even want to know how long that might take! Do you want to be able to get to FLL by Tri-Rail? Ask your county commissioners to keep the shuttle.

Find your commissioner and let them know you want to see Tri-Rail shuttles funded for the coming year. Also remind them that you want to see funding continue on a permanent basis.

Streetsblog had a post last week with a link to a document outlining McCain’s and Obama’s respective positions on transportation. Well worth checking out.

Much closer to home, Broward County is cutting funding for the Tri-Rail feeder buses. As a shuttle stops at my workplace, and my employer just built a bus shelter for it, this is particularly upsetting. We may have more to say about this later.

Ridership is up already 45% over June 2007. May saw a 25% increase, April 28% and March 22%.  More than 157 companies signed up for the authority’s employer discount program in May — about 881 riders.

While travelining along the line, I noticed a few key areas where tri-rail could drastically improve its bottom line and service:

TOD: Currently Inexistent.  This is my major focus in Regional Planning studies.  Often times, I find that our problems are not necessarily the fault of poor transit policy but rather what we choose to do with the land around our transit centers.  In Miami, this usually equates to fences, poor access, and inappropriate uses.

Parking: Currently free and very limited.  Potential revenue source?  There are several reasons why free parking poses many problems, even at transit stations.

Employee Parking: Seriously?  This parking is largely unused and unnecessary.

Tri-Rail has received a year reprieve in which it must continue to attract a larger share of riders while working to better integrate itself with the South Florida Landscape.  Most of the land use issues are largely out of the control of the agency but must still be addressed regionaly if we ever hope to make a sliver of change in our very autocentric lifestyles.

Imagine the kind of reaction we’d see if I-95 and Florida’s Turnpike were to be closed in the Tri-County area on weekends, holidays, late nights, and you could only drive on them a handful of times during weekdays. Sound crazy? This is what Tri-Rail is facing.

While we all stand to lose tremendously from the proposed Tri-Rail service cuts, it may not be entirely clear who stands to lose the most. I’ve outlined below the stakeholders who should be fighting tooth and nail to save Tri-Rail:

–> Commuters traveling north-south in all three counties: Of course this is a no-brainer, but it has to be mentioned. Tri-Rail is currently averaging 14,000-15,000 weekday boardings, which translates to maybe 6,500 round-trips and roughly 1,500 one-way trips. Cuts in service would alienate these thousands of commuters, not to mention stifle anticipated future growth. As gas prices continue to rise (forever), more and more people would switch to commuter rail at current service levels. The service cuts could compromise this, forcing commuters to suffer in traffic congestion and definitely in the wallet.

–> Airport users of FLL: This is probably the second most popular use of Tri-Rail other than commuting to work. Tri-Rail provides great service to FLL. I use it almost every time I fly (what can I say, FLL has great deals to NYC and Philly) and I save a ton of money on airport parking and don’t have to worry about paying off friends to drive 40 miles round trip…twice. Also, let’s not forget about the thousands of employees at FLL (and MIA for that matter), that could use Tri-Rail to get to work. Airports are major employment centers — they should be served by reliable transit.

–> The City of Miami Beach and its’ residents: As it currently stands, tourists flying into oft-cheaper FLL en route to Miami Beach can use Tri-Rail instead of renting a car. This saves tourists money, which will be spent on the Beach. More importantly, it means less traffic congestion on South Beach. Given the current levels of congestion there and forecasts for increases in the future, Beach residents and officials should be doing whatever they can to keep cars out, which means supporting Tri-Rail.

–> Anyone who commutes on I-95 or Florida’s Turnpike: That’s right — if you drive north-south on I-95 or Florida’s Turnpike to and from work each weekday, you definitely stand to lose big with Tri-Rail service cuts. The Tri-County area continues its explosive population growth, which means those traffic jams you face everyday are only going to get worse. Tri-Rail is currently averaging between 14,000-15,000 weekday boardings, and ridership continues to grow. This offsets the effect of population growth on north-south highway congestion. If a significant number of these 6,000 people or so decided to abandon poor service on Tri-Rail and get behind the wheel, you’d notice your daily commute sucking even more.

–> Low-income households that rely on Tri-Rail: Believe it or not people with low-incomes have a right to travel between counties in the metro area. It just so happens that it’s likely weekends and holidays that they would be most likely to make this travel, whether it’s to see family, friends, or just for travel. Eliminating this service would frankly be discriminatory.