Costly North Corridor rail plan slips off the schedule

The cost to build long-sought heavy rail from downtown Miami to Hard Rock Stadium almost doubled in the past year and now is $4.2 billion, the Florida Department of Transportation estimates.

As project plans are refined, the state no longer cites a completion date – or even when work could start. Planning of the North Corridor, one of six legs of the county’s well-publicized Smart Program to add mass transit, began in 2016.

North Corridor costs per passenger trip now are projected at $54.47. That could put crucial federal funds for construction far out of reach.

The Federal Transit Administration, which funds projects, gives high ratings for costs less than $8 per trip, medium for $10 to $19.99, and low ratings to those costing $35 or more, the county’s Citizens’ Independent Transportation Trust was told last month.

In December 2024, rail completion was estimated for 2037, a year later than Nilia Cartaya of the Florida Department of Transportation had told the trust in May 2024. But last month, asked by trust member Harry Hoffman for a “guesstimate” of when the system could finally run, Ms. Cartaya replied, “I don’t have that information at the moment.”

Ms. Cartaya’s May 2024 presentation had put the capital cost of the 9.8-mile elevated rail with eight stations and seven park-and-ride sites at $1.9 billion. By December 2024 the cost was up to $2.2 billion and on the rise: “We’ll come back to this body with an updated figure in the next few months,” she said.

Last month, with an addition of plans for a light maintenance facility at the line’s north end, Ms. Cartaya put the cost at $4.2 billion. Without the facility the cost would have been $4.1 billion, she told the trust.

The trust oversees county transportation sales tax receipts, which together with the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) and the state are to fund the corridor.

Steps to build the rail line along Northwest 27th Avenue were frozen after the county in 2022 pulled the plug on a call for public-private partners. That detour to private developers and then back again had left state studies dormant from May 2020 to November 2022. All have since had to be refreshed.

The state, which is spearheading the effort, is planning piers for the heavy rail system in the center of 27th Avenue to avoid as much as possible acquiring right-of-way from private owners and so keep costs down, Ms. Cartaya told the trust last month.

“The footprint of the project is critical,” she said. “Where we land these structures is important from a cost perspective and a constructability perspective.”

Land for the maintenance facility wouldn’t be acquired. The current plan is to put it on a county site on Northwest 27th Avenue just south of the Turnpike, which has enough land as well for a park-and-ride and a bus terminal, Ms. Cartaya said.

With the cost estimates continuing to rise, Ms. Cartaya says the state is now looking at adding the new rail line not in a single large project but in stages, starting from downtown Miami and working north step by step.

“The project is very costly, so we really want to try to home in on what components of this project could we build in phases to try to make the project more financially feasible and to improve the FTA cost effectiveness rating, because this is critical in order to pursue federal funds,” Ms. Cartaya told the trust last month. The aim is to get the cost per trip down to between $20 and $34, she said. “That’s the goal.”

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