If I had a nickel for every commuter rail system that was initially designed as temporary mitigation for I-95 construction, I'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.
The Lost Subways of North America book talks about the streetcars Miami once had as well as the original Metrorail plans! In 1926, the City of Miami had six streetcar lines, the Miami Beach Railway Co. had three lines, with the Miami Beach Line connecting downtown Miami with Miami Beach, and the Coral Gables Rapid Transit Co. had three lines, with the Ponce de Leon and Coral Way Lines reaching downtown Miami from Coral Gables. In 1979, besides the section from Hialeah to Dadeland South that got built, it was supposed to extend even further south to Cutler Ridge (now Cutler Bay) as the southern terminus of a 1 Line, and in the north, a 2 Line would terminate in Hialeah, while a 1 Line would terminate in Opa-Locka. A 3 Line would connect MIA with Douglas Road, while a 4 Line would go to downtown and cross the causeway to Miami Beach. In 2002, there was a "People's Transportation Plan" with a tax measure put into vote to expand Metrorail, and under this plan, an East-West corridor line would connect Sweetwater with MIA, Government Center, and the Port of Miami. A North Corridor/Bay link line would serve places like Carol City in Miami Gardens, Opa-Locka, Miami Dade College's North campus, head downtown, and cross the causeway to Miami Beach. An Airport Connector between Earlington Heights and MIA, which got built in 2012 as a terminus of the Orange Line. A Northeast Corridor connecting Government Center with Design District, FIU Biscayne Bay campus, Aventura, and NE 215 St (this is the Brightline corridor and what the current commuter rail plan aims to achieve). A Florida City extension by extending from Dadeland South down to SW 344 St in Florida City. And finally a Kendall line from the MIA down to Miracle Mile and Douglas Road, then south to Dadeland South, and a branch that goes to SW 147 Ave with another to FIU University Park where it meets the East-West Corridor!
The preliminary engineering report for the Miami Metro rail is very interesting. It shows the full scheme for the different corridors as well as the designs for the stations.
The problem with South Florida transit is that it doesn't serve any suberbs west of Miami, where the majority of the population actually live and work. Maybe because it would cut into the toll revenue?
Yes this is so true. There’s only buses west of the cities, even in places south of dadeland like homestead, whose population really needs rail transportation lacks any at all.
Sadly there are no right of ways available East to West. The ones being used now are legacy from when everything was moved north to south very close to the coast
As someone who works in South Florida and travels up to the Suncoast area (Tampa Bay area) I got a few insights for you. When the original Metrorail was built, the cost exploded because local politicians set up construction companies and awarded themselves no bid contracts. The county also got land through "eminent domain" they sold that property to local politicians who then resold it back to the county..... Your experience on the Metrorail is all too common, homeless people ride on the trains all day and so do the druggies. Security doesn't empty out the trains at the end of the line, The county cut back on security to save money and replace it with CCTV and usually 1 guard per station. No one in their right mind rides the MetroMover after dark except to Miami Heat games when they have cops on board, 99% of the time the trains and stations have no security and only CCTV. The Suncoast area of Florida has 3.5 million people and are against buses and trains.... Pinellas county which voted to ban fluoridated tap water (due to a couple of commissioners who followed Alex Jones) and later the county reinstated fluoridated water.... Said that "buses and trains will put your grandparents and grandchildren at risk because elements of the community will have access to your homes and families".... That's another reason why South Florida trains don't run on the FEC, an argument was "public transportation riders will put our communities at risk".....
I have absolutely no idea when the last time you rode the Mover was but I ride it almost every day. There are security guards at almost half the stations and riding on many of the trains. They have zero tolerance for harassment from homeless people or druggies. I ride the system even at midnight all of the time and the security guards are still there and I’ve never felt threatened.
@@michaeldeantonio6295 was he talking about the Mover or the Metro (as in the line on which the incident happened)? as for the initial comment... if you have a very dangerous and lawless city, and a quiet small town neighborhood, I do think it is totally fair not to want the two easily connected. a solution would be to either have a network that does not go into said city... (not as rare a solution as one would think) or, Shock-&-Horror deal with the crime-problem the city posses... a powerful war on crime is something that was done in places like NYC, DC, and to an extent in Chicago... obviously, it is going to meet resistance in areas where crime has dominated for generations... but, if you want to be accepted in your state rather than become gazaified by it (building a virtual wall around your city and making sure no one crosses it) than you have to bite that bullet... sometimes quite literally.
In the early 20th century, Miami and other Florida cities had streetcar systems (until the taxi lobby and car/bus industries lobbied them out of existence)
Sorry to hear about your metro incident but i know glad you added it, we can’t gloss over things like that when people bring it up as an excuse. If safety was just better in general in the states I think we’d see transit ridership increase.
So sorry to hear about that encounter you had. I used to ride Metrorail everyday for 2 years to work and never had a problem. Perhaps it was the filming that set him off? Vloggers have to be careful today when filming.
Day trip from Pittsburgh to Florida! My fragile European mind can't process this. The stereotype is absolutely true "Europeans think 100 miles is a long way, Americans think 100 years is a long time" 😂
Shame you didn't mention that in Miami, the word for bus is guagua! Guagua is the word for bus in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Canary Islands, and the word originally comes from Canarian Spanish and many Canarians (like my great-grandmother) migrated from the Canary Islands to Cuba and PR. It is an onomatopoeia stemming from the sound of a Klaxon horn. The Florida East Coast Railway built by Henry Flagler once went all the way to Key West! Because of the Panama Canal's construction at the time, Flagler wanted to link Key West to the mainland. Key West because Key West was the US's closest deep-water port to the Canal, take advantage of Latin American trade, and the opening of the Canal would allow significant trade possibilities with the West Coast. When the Overseas Railroad was in operation, it had the Havana Special as its premier train, running daily except Sundays between NYC and Key West, with connecting ferries to Havana! With speed restricted to 15 miles per hour (24 km/h) on the long bridges, it took a leisurely four and a half hours to travel the distance between Key West and Miami! The engineering challenges involved in constructing the Overseas Railroad were immense, requiring numerous feats of ingenuity and perseverance! After the railroad was damaged by the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, as the railroad was financially unable to rebuild the destroyed sections, the roadbed and remaining bridges were sold to the Florida state government, which refurbished it for car use, becoming the Overseas Highway. Unsupported sections were added in 1935 to widen it for vehicular traffic. Dismantled trackage was recycled, painted white, and used as guardrails. So the Old Seven Mile Bridge was originally a train bridge, then it became a car bridge in 1935, before of course being replaced by a newer Seven Mile Bridge in 1982, as Hurricane Donna in 1960 further damaged the bridge. After the Overseas Highway was modernized and widened with bridges replaced, the Old Seven Mile Bridge and other old Overseas Railroad bridges later became part of the Florida Keys Overseas Heritage Trail!
As someone from Miami who is a big supporter of public transit there is a plan to start the commuter rail in the next couple years and start the construction of the bay link people mover to Miami Beach in the next few years. Also, I’m an so sorry for what happened to you on the Metro-rail I’ve ridden it so many time and I never had a bad experience riding it. Thanks for visiting hope you can come back in the next couple and trust me, a lot is going to change in public transit for the better.
@@j-train13 It's about Money and at $100 Million per mile it would cost about $1 Billion for Metrorail to cross Biscayne Bay. Currently Metrobus transports about 14,000 passengers a day between Miami Beach & downtown which is more than enough riders to warrant a Metrorail extension. The County should have been pursuing Federal Monies for this a long time ago.
The Metro Mover extension from downtown Miami to Miami Beach is now at risk because of one more example of NIMBYs The project was financed by county, state and federal money but Miami Beach City Commission voted against it, their argument is that it shouldn't come thru Miami Beach but somewhere north of them. The resolution didnt kill the project but now there is an ongoing legal battle where wealthy residents of the area have promised to stall the thing as long as they can. So we won't see that thing running at least until Miami Beach is under water by the end of the century
@@maumor2 What do these Wealthy NIMBYs think is going to happen to South Beach? Have they've seen what goes on there during Spring Break & Memorial Day Weekend? 😝🤪😜
Great video! As someone who moved from Chicago to South Florida, I was sad to see that Miami's Metromover system is lacking in a lot of critical zones. I guess I was beyond spoiled with the CTA in Chicago... As for safety, I agree that there can be some weird people but my main technique on transit has always been to have an airpod in one side, open ear on the other (typically the side facing the middle of the train or the most people). I've seen cops and security onboard the train before, so that has made me feel safer.
Amazing video once again! I have a newfound appreciation for the expansive diversity of Miami's transit network, in addition to Brightline. Each one isn't perfect, but they're all special in their own way, and I now see that Miami showcases so many of them in great ways (another diversity feat is Tri Rail's diverse roster, consisting of GP49s and until recently, experimental bilevel DMUs from Colorado Railcar). Also, the Tri Rail Fort Lauderdale reminds me of the Grand Floridian resort in Dosney World, a hotel I would visit often when traveling to Disney, with the overall design and welcoming attitude, which is an aspect that's not found too often at commuter rail stations.
So sorry to hear what happened to you on metrorail :( My experience on metrorail and metromover back in February was some of the safest, most pleasant transit I’ve ever experienced, although it probably helps that the most recent experiences I have to compare to are post pandemic CTA, plus I rode metrorail early in the morning to the airport with a police officer on board for most of the ride and even if that wasn’t the case, my three day stay is a small anecdotal snapshot that doesn’t really mean much in the grand scheme of things. My Brightline ride from MCO to MIA central was also nice, but the price was a little steep imo, I just pray they get rid of the dreaded DOTS(!!!) because they completely ruined the beautiful south Florida scenery. Also glad to know what the arch is for, I passed under it multiple times on my bike rides as well as going by it multiple times on the MetroMover to and from the apartment I booked in Edgewater.
Oh, just got to the part where you mentioned not having any Cuban food, you’ll have to try some next time because you really missed out. Some highlights from my trip were some Cuban frita burgers, a breakfast sandwich made with a sweet bread roll called pan medianoche (literally “midnight bread”) and WAY too many guava pastelitos from Sergio’s Go! in Brickell. Needless to say, between all the great food in Miami and pigging out at a Mexican Bakery during my overnight stay in Detroit, I was having to get creative to avoid getting plied with food at every turn while visiting my aunt in Grand Rapids the following week lmao.
@@RobertAshburn yeah, I heard that they were getting a lot of complaints and considering making changes, I’d prefer no wrap at all over the windows (unless you count a reasonable window tint as “wrapping”), but any improvement in visibility is a welcome change imo
Don't let one bad apple ruin the bunch. I'm sorry you've had a bad experience with the MetroMover but please do know it's been pretty good for most of us down south. Try it again one day!
I live in Miami and love taking the metro whenever I can. I’ve recently took it for over 7 days last year to the World Baseball Classic with a free shuttle to the ballpark. There are talks and plans to expand the metro north ending at the county line and would have a stop near the football stadium where the Dolphins and University of Miami play. This would be great because the Hard Rock hosts other major sporting events and concerts.
With Brightline, not only are you connected to the theme parks and the international airport in Orlando, but they've been building housing by the stations, and for cruise goers, it's a great way to get to the cruise ports! The system of the Metrorail dropping people off downtown and the Metromover connecting them with the rest of downtown is basically what Detroit was aiming to achieve. The Detroit People Mover was meant to be a downtown circulator of a bigger regional plan with different rail lines and the then SEMTA Commuter Rail being expanded to Ann Arbor and Port Huron as feeders. Detroit and the suburbs couldn't agree on anything for the 600 mil. promised by Gerald Ford and so only the circulator got built before federal money was withdrawn by Reagan. Metrorail being elevated makes sense because of both the Floridian water table and not having to deal with FDOT. When the Metrorail system first opened in 1984, it opened with the MetroPath or M-Path underneath the tracks, originally a 10.5-mile trail for cyclists that crosses different intersections. This was built along the former the Florida East Coast Railway's main line ROW between Miami and Kendall, which was abandoned in 1972 and purchased by the county in 1979 for Metrorail. As a result of the success of the High Line in NYC, plans were made to revamp the MetroPath in 2014 as a linear park, dubbed the Underline. The first phase was completed in Brickell in 2021, the second phase from Brickell to just south of Vizcaya station was completed in April 2024, and when the third phase is completed, it will be completed to Dadeland South! Besides being a path for jogging and cyclists, it features things like bike repair stations, exercise equipment, art installations, and will provide access to public transportation to a university, over 20 schools, hospitals, urgent care facilities, major malls and over 10,000 businesses! Just south of Dadeland South, the paved path continues south as the South Dade Trail, all the way to Florida City. The entire route forms a 31-mile corridor!
The Vancouver SkyTrain is a more fully realized vision of the detroit people mover (both systems use the same hybrid third rail/linear motor propulsion system)
You pretty much have to drive everywhere in Miami. Walking is nearly nonexistent. The bus system is horrible after they changed the routes (every bus is full of people now)(what's funnier is that when they made the busses free for two months, they weren't as packed). The politicians and residents in Miami Beach are so full of themselves that they rejected an alternative to getting off their dogshit island that doesn't involve driving on the causeways. Something else to mention is that in Miami Beach, Coral Gables, Downtown Miami, etc. they have these trolleys which are operated by the city and are pretty much glorified busses (except for the ones in Miami Beach that are scary to be on). Great Video tho.
I used both Metro transit and Tri rail the last time I was in Miami. I was happy it served Hialeah since I was going there for the casino. It’s a shame they do not have horse racing there anymore. It was one of the most beautiful tracks in America. With all the traffic in the Miami area any rail system should do good as long as it serves areas where people want to go.
You forgot to mention Fortress Capital the owners of Brightline also own the Florida East Coast Rail Road. Also the Miami Metro plans to explain a line to Aventura. Other than that good video. There is one more rideable train in South Florida. There a full size Train at the Train museum next to Miami Zoo that rideable.
FDOT fixed the issue with the platforms at the intermodal center. It's not necessarily that the platforms are too short but that the train would be so long that they would block car traffic at the north crossing. FDOT fixed this by making an auxiliary road for the cars in case the long Amtrak trains block the crossing.
Now that's straight up the best illustrative system map I've seen for this area, thank you - sorry you had to go through the wars to make it happen \m/
The title got a little chuckle out of me, we do have some strange trains atleast we have them in the end. Tri-Rail has a special place in my heart as it was the first train system (if you don't count metrorail) that I rode as a kid and it definitely helped me appreciate train travel to this day. I don't live by it but its an interesting system and I'm glad to see it expanded to downtown and the airport in recent years. I haven't rode brightline but I do appreciate it a lot, for it being in florida its impressive htey were able to get it running but i do hope that commuter rail can be put onto those tracks. The metrorail is pretty neat, I've rode it quite a few times especially recently. The old budd cars are nostalgic for me but the newer ones are much more quiet, and just look better so I'm thankful for them. I myself haven't faced any violence or stuff on the train but im really sorry you did it sucks having experienced it in another transit system. Thankfully atleast in my experience and a family member who uses it daily it seems to be a rare occasion as we both haven't encountered it you just got really unlucky sadly its always something i make sure to check my surroundings for just in case. It really does need 2-3 more lines to be a true system that can servce large amounts of the city. The metromover is strange but it works well and is free, can't really complain about it being people movers as it works, is frequent and thats what really matters.
I've ridden Tri-Rail for two years now, sometimes three trains a day. The majority of the passengers come from the airports from my understanding. Some, like me, are going to/from universities, colleges, or schools that do not provide a yellow bus service. I used to see a lot of yellow school buses parked outside stations, picking up schoolkids aged from elementary to high school. Later on, I used Tri-Rail for both school and work. Like most South Floridians, I didn't even know that it existed since the stations are often inconspicuous. If you use rail transit in conjunction with bus transit, there are virtually no limits to where you can go. Other services like Freebee, Uber and Lyft discounts, and Metromover help in a similar fashion. Your analysis at the end about Miami's urban sprawl is pretty spot-on. Another thing to note is that most stations outside of Palm Beach County bear no resemblance to each other. The FTL Airport station you showed, for example, contrasts sharply with the one right before it, FTL Broward Blvd., one of the Amtrak stations. Biggest problem with the trains is not fellow passengers or access but the innumerable delays and inconsistencies in service. Sorry to hear about that happening to you on Metrorail, though.
Great video! I’ve never ridden Tri-Rail, but I’m really surprised to learn that it has higher ridership than MARC, especially considering how MARC directly serves both Baltimore and Washington and mainline Tri-Rail services miss downtown Miami by miles!
That comment from Reagan makes my blood boil! I wonder whether the new GTA Vice City game will have any trains (probably not). I think it says something that GTA games based in New York and LA all feature trains of one type or another, but not Miami. Sorry you had that violent experience! The worst I’ve ever had is a guy on BART who was saying stuff like the state of California has kidnapped me and going around trying to converse with passengers, but it was definitely not physical!
I think the Orange Line is a perfect case study on branch naming in transit, since it’s effectively a branch of the Green Line. Personally, I would prefer branches where pretty much all trains running the other direction end at the same place are considered just one line, like Metrorail, the branches at the bottom of the Chicago Green line, the Red and Gold lines in Atlanta; while trains that consistently run to different end points should be treated as different lines, like the Blue and Green lines in Atlanta or pretty much every service in NYC.
The TriRail train from the MetroRail transfer station to downtown Miami is a complete waste of resources. You still have to get off the train, move to the other platform, and then wait for the shuttle train to downtown. Or you could catch the MetroRail to the same location. On the weekends, the last two trains are at 6:00 PM and 9:00 PM. The shuttle train should be taken from downtown service and used to fill in that 3 hour gap.
as someone who lived in all three of these cities (some years without a car) i am hyper obsessed with this topic yet also dont care anymore and have decided to just leave. Miami will never be built for its people, it exists as a playground for wealthy people from all over the world.
Very cool video! Good to see Brightline might actually launch or at least allow commuter rail on a line where it actually needs it most. And hopefully with the upcoming success of Brightline West they will hopefully re-evaluate and think about electrification of the mainline so that they could offer faster passenger services along the existing corridor. Not horribly faster, but 125 MPH/200 KMH running speed would be great since this is the threshold by which you can basically still have at grade crossings in North America IF you upgrade and isolate the ROW as much as possible, something I see lacking in every smash-up news story on Brightline and its unfortunate kill count vs. people looking to beat the train the old fashioned way...
It seems that the FEC commuter rail if built would be very successful since the rail line is lined with more walkable communities that we built around train service in contrast to Tri-Rail passing through mainly industrial areas.
Nice that you managed to cover so much of Miami's transit network in 14 minutes. I think the success of Brightline in has the potential to kickstart a new inter-city rail renaissance on this continent. also 9:26 the lines you drew are clockwise even though you said counterclockwise
So about the state of Tri-rail's rolling stock, I'll say the same thing I said to Trains Are Awesome, and it's that you both got unlucky, as there's actually a few different rolling stock models in service and unfortunately you were on the oldest one. The newer coaches feel a LOT more modern in comparison (even the water fountains seem drinkable!), the seats are more comfortable (and have a twos layout instead of fours, with the exception of tables though they do still have work to be done in all honesty, but it's still much better than what you got P.S. I am upset that you cut off the map of the old Florida East Coast Railway before it showed the GLORY that was the Overseas Railway. All the way to Key West baby
Did I see a GO Transit bud driving on the highway that the Outer Loop Metromover passed over? I trust that was a private coach operator who hadn’t bothered to repaint their second hand buses because I don’t think Government of Ontario Transit runs service outside Ontario given their name.
So the reason Amtrak doesn't run out of Miami Airport is due to long train consist and not enough platform? You'd think they would've planned for that or built the road over the tracks. Maybe they didn't do enough research 😆 Here's a suggestion: Depart Miami Airport, add the additional cars at the older Miami Station and then continue on. Amtrak does this with other trains: Lake Shore Limited in Albany when it splits. The Texas Eagle leaves one Superliner Coach in St. Louis, etc. I know logistics and rolling stock availability would come into play, but it would be an option.
The Road is there (NW 25th. Street) the problem is that when the FDOT was planning the Station they didn't figure in how long the AMTRAK trains were & would block the Road. That street has smaller Rental car companies that objected to having their main business road being blocked.
Only time I was robbed in my entire life happened on the Miami Metrorail. So glad to not live anywhere near there anymore. Safe in Chicago with real functional transit.
Wouldn’t it be wild if Amtrak was kicked out of Florida and the tri rail combined with the metro via 3rd rail electrification or hybrid catenary/3rd rail trains for Miami 😅wasted opportunity no?
It's a shame you were harassed by someone on the Metrorail. I would have just gotten off and taken the next train. Of all the US's metros, Miami is probably one of the safest, I have never encountered problems on it. Ironically, the Metromover is the least safe of the trains and has incidents every so often, usually at night. Since you didn't go to Government Center Station, you missed the ghost platform on the second level which at one point would have been the East/West line before they scrapped expansion plans. Hopefully the system gets expanded someday but there is no local political interest and every time an expansion plan comes along, the county commissioners siphon the money away for pet projects. The southern Busway expansion is currently underway as a Rapid Bus Transit [BRT] with the capability to "Convert To Metrorail" if demand picks up, but I doubt that will ever happen. They are working on the Metromover expansion to the beach but there is a lot of NIMBY pushback currently stalling it.
The NIMBY push back about Rail to South Beach is funny though! Have they seen what their City turns into during Spring Break, Memorial Day & Urban Beach Weekend? 😂🤣😋
People movers for the win. The Omni loop is my favorite mover track in Miami. Downtown Miami was much more exciting in the early 90's. It's basically a wasteland currently. No reason to really go there, but the 'Bayside' area is nice at night. That's where the action and fun is. Thanks for visiting my hometown!
REAGAN basically killed any hope & funding of expanding Metro Rail with that speech. Imagine trying to build a 25 Mile/40 Km Heavy Rail Line in the US today for $1 Billion dollars! REAGAN didn't know a bargain when he saw one!
@@sammymarrco47 That & the fact that I think when people think about DC 'suburbs' with a lot of population commuting regularly into the city, ppl think about the places that the Metro serves. The Marc actually goes a lot further. Which is a nice thing that I think they underutilized. (Mostly due to scheduling scheme I think).
I still don’t sympathize with people who don’t want to ride trains because that sort of thing could happen. That sort of thing could happen at all sorts of places - walking down the street, whatever.
Yeah, no... I live in Miami and you did not have that drug addict thing happen, security is extremely tight between MIA and the orange line terminus, also you filmed an empty train car but somehow someone magically appeared.
A, the cars are in married pairs so the sorts of people who don't care about rules can walk between cars while the train is in motion. B. Please see what other people have written - security is not airtight. C. What do I stand to gain from making up the story?
Incompetence, laziness and stupidity (ie, Government) are the reasons Amtrak doesn't serve the intermodal center. They should all be fired. The State & County spend a pile of money reconfiguring the roads to accommodate the longer trains but Amtrak just whines about it being too hard to back into the terminal. Instead, we're stuck with the POS, middle of nowhere Miami Station that doesn't even have level boarding. President Regan was _not_ lying so you lose. Annualized ridership, even over 3 years. This is why TransitTube can be so cringey. Private = Operating. Public = Fantasy.
@@ClassyWhale Yes. That's how math works, and how Government projects work. In 1985 dollars, that $Billion *subsidy* would have covered those 10,000 riders using Uber for nearly 20 years. Shouldn't be any surprise that the best experience of you trip was the entirely privately financed Brightline. (Yes, it was, don't bother with the PABs or county stations.) I know you kids have been indoctrinated with Public = Good, Private = Bad but this trip proves otherwise. You should be advocating for privatizing transit like Hong Kong or Tokyo instead of endlessly hoping the MTA or Amtrak can get their act together (never going to happen).
@@rapunzel1701 but what about the 10,001st rider? And the 10,002nd? This argument presumes that only the initial glut of riders would keep riding. To subsidize further rideshare - more people come of age and move to Miami, etc - you'd need to funnel quite a bit more money, eventually topping the cost of rapid transit.
@@ClassyWhale Glad you asked! Since 1985, the Miami metro area has seen seen roughly a doubling of population, yet Metro-Rail rider ship is only 30k per day. Yes, that's a 3x increase but the roughly 10k delta over population growth is pathetic. Why? This was a political vanity project that didn't actually server the transit needs of the area, Government does this. Airport service only started in 2012 and there's no service to Marlins Stadium, PortMiami, Joe Robbie or anyplace else people actually want to go. And it's still way faster to Uber from Dadeland South to MIA. Fail. Metro-Rail's primary customer base is Gov employees that work at either Government Center or Jackson so it's really government transit. Transit advocates would do way better calling out the bureaucratic incompetence than whining about 'funding' and other nonsense.
@@rapunzel1701 Where are you getting your Stats from? Metrorail carries over 50k a day in the Q1-2024 APTA stats. As for going to the Joe Robbie/ Miami Dolphins stadium why should they extend Metrorail to a facility that is used maybe 2 dozen times a year?
If I had a nickel for every commuter rail system that was initially designed as temporary mitigation for I-95 construction, I'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.
What was the other one?
@@ClassyWhale Shore Line East!
@@MilesinTransit what about two clam diggers now deceased?
@@MilesinTransit I thought you said South Shore Line at first, lol
Huh! Maybe people do prefer trains over cars after all... who would have thought that
I think we can say that Miami (literally) is just built different
(TV show laugh)
The Lost Subways of North America book talks about the streetcars Miami once had as well as the original Metrorail plans! In 1926, the City of Miami had six streetcar lines, the Miami Beach Railway Co. had three lines, with the Miami Beach Line connecting downtown Miami with Miami Beach, and the Coral Gables Rapid Transit Co. had three lines, with the Ponce de Leon and Coral Way Lines reaching downtown Miami from Coral Gables. In 1979, besides the section from Hialeah to Dadeland South that got built, it was supposed to extend even further south to Cutler Ridge (now Cutler Bay) as the southern terminus of a 1 Line, and in the north, a 2 Line would terminate in Hialeah, while a 1 Line would terminate in Opa-Locka. A 3 Line would connect MIA with Douglas Road, while a 4 Line would go to downtown and cross the causeway to Miami Beach.
In 2002, there was a "People's Transportation Plan" with a tax measure put into vote to expand Metrorail, and under this plan, an East-West corridor line would connect Sweetwater with MIA, Government Center, and the Port of Miami. A North Corridor/Bay link line would serve places like Carol City in Miami Gardens, Opa-Locka, Miami Dade College's North campus, head downtown, and cross the causeway to Miami Beach. An Airport Connector between Earlington Heights and MIA, which got built in 2012 as a terminus of the Orange Line. A Northeast Corridor connecting Government Center with Design District, FIU Biscayne Bay campus, Aventura, and NE 215 St (this is the Brightline corridor and what the current commuter rail plan aims to achieve). A Florida City extension by extending from Dadeland South down to SW 344 St in Florida City. And finally a Kendall line from the MIA down to Miracle Mile and Douglas Road, then south to Dadeland South, and a branch that goes to SW 147 Ave with another to FIU University Park where it meets the East-West Corridor!
Streetcars are useless stop building them build proper rail or don’t bother and just run better buses.
That'd be amazing. The SMART plan that's starting to be implemented is an attempt at this.
The preliminary engineering report for the Miami Metro rail is very interesting. It shows the full scheme for the different corridors as well as the designs for the stations.
The problem with South Florida transit is that it doesn't serve any suberbs west of Miami, where the majority of the population actually live and work. Maybe because it would cut into the toll revenue?
100% we need an East to West train
Yes this is so true. There’s only buses west of the cities, even in places south of dadeland like homestead, whose population really needs rail transportation lacks any at all.
Sadly there are no right of ways available East to West. The ones being used now are legacy from when everything was moved north to south very close to the coast
The way you said Brickell brought me great pain
Brickelle
10:21 love the random ex-GO Transit coach bus just hanging out in Miami.
So weird seeing my home province’s busses in an area that isn’t cold.
Also many of Tri-Rail's older Bombardier coaches were actually given to them by GO Transit
As someone who works in South Florida and travels up to the Suncoast area (Tampa Bay area) I got a few insights for you.
When the original Metrorail was built, the cost exploded because local politicians set up construction companies and awarded themselves no bid contracts. The county also got land through "eminent domain" they sold that property to local politicians who then resold it back to the county.....
Your experience on the Metrorail is all too common, homeless people ride on the trains all day and so do the druggies. Security doesn't empty out the trains at the end of the line, The county cut back on security to save money and replace it with CCTV and usually 1 guard per station.
No one in their right mind rides the MetroMover after dark except to Miami Heat games when they have cops on board, 99% of the time the trains and stations have no security and only CCTV.
The Suncoast area of Florida has 3.5 million people and are against buses and trains....
Pinellas county which voted to ban fluoridated tap water (due to a couple of commissioners who followed Alex Jones) and later the county reinstated fluoridated water....
Said that "buses and trains will put your grandparents and grandchildren at risk because elements of the community will have access to your homes and families"....
That's another reason why South Florida trains don't run on the FEC, an argument was "public transportation riders will put our communities at risk".....
I have absolutely no idea when the last time you rode the Mover was but I ride it almost every day. There are security guards at almost half the stations and riding on many of the trains. They have zero tolerance for harassment from homeless people or druggies. I ride the system even at midnight all of the time and the security guards are still there and I’ve never felt threatened.
@@michaeldeantonio6295 was he talking about the Mover or the Metro (as in the line on which the incident happened)?
as for the initial comment... if you have a very dangerous and lawless city, and a quiet small town neighborhood, I do think it is totally fair not to want the two easily connected.
a solution would be to either have a network that does not go into said city... (not as rare a solution as one would think) or, Shock-&-Horror deal with the crime-problem the city posses... a powerful war on crime is something that was done in places like NYC, DC, and to an extent in Chicago... obviously, it is going to meet resistance in areas where crime has dominated for generations... but, if you want to be accepted in your state rather than become gazaified by it (building a virtual wall around your city and making sure no one crosses it) than you have to bite that bullet... sometimes quite literally.
In the early 20th century, Miami and other Florida cities had streetcar systems (until the taxi lobby and car/bus industries lobbied them out of existence)
Sorry to hear about your metro incident but i know glad you added it, we can’t gloss over things like that when people bring it up as an excuse. If safety was just better in general in the states I think we’d see transit ridership increase.
So sorry to hear about that encounter you had. I used to ride Metrorail everyday for 2 years to work and never had a problem. Perhaps it was the filming that set him off? Vloggers have to be careful today when filming.
3:31 sounds like a wise person
7:30 Reagan lied, transit died
Some great shots in this video!
Day trip from Pittsburgh to Florida!
My fragile European mind can't process this. The stereotype is absolutely true "Europeans think 100 miles is a long way, Americans think 100 years is a long time" 😂
Shame you didn't mention that in Miami, the word for bus is guagua! Guagua is the word for bus in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Canary Islands, and the word originally comes from Canarian Spanish and many Canarians (like my great-grandmother) migrated from the Canary Islands to Cuba and PR. It is an onomatopoeia stemming from the sound of a Klaxon horn. The Florida East Coast Railway built by Henry Flagler once went all the way to Key West! Because of the Panama Canal's construction at the time, Flagler wanted to link Key West to the mainland. Key West because Key West was the US's closest deep-water port to the Canal, take advantage of Latin American trade, and the opening of the Canal would allow significant trade possibilities with the West Coast. When the Overseas Railroad was in operation, it had the Havana Special as its premier train, running daily except Sundays between NYC and Key West, with connecting ferries to Havana! With speed restricted to 15 miles per hour (24 km/h) on the long bridges, it took a leisurely four and a half hours to travel the distance between Key West and Miami! The engineering challenges involved in constructing the Overseas Railroad were immense, requiring numerous feats of ingenuity and perseverance!
After the railroad was damaged by the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, as the railroad was financially unable to rebuild the destroyed sections, the roadbed and remaining bridges were sold to the Florida state government, which refurbished it for car use, becoming the Overseas Highway. Unsupported sections were added in 1935 to widen it for vehicular traffic. Dismantled trackage was recycled, painted white, and used as guardrails. So the Old Seven Mile Bridge was originally a train bridge, then it became a car bridge in 1935, before of course being replaced by a newer Seven Mile Bridge in 1982, as Hurricane Donna in 1960 further damaged the bridge. After the Overseas Highway was modernized and widened with bridges replaced, the Old Seven Mile Bridge and other old Overseas Railroad bridges later became part of the Florida Keys Overseas Heritage Trail!
Excuse me primo how can you forget about us? We say la guagua in Dominican Republic too 🇩🇴
As someone from Miami who is a big supporter of public transit there is a plan to start the commuter rail in the next couple years and start the construction of the bay link people mover to Miami Beach in the next few years. Also, I’m an so sorry for what happened to you on the Metro-rail I’ve ridden it so many time and I never had a bad experience riding it. Thanks for visiting hope you can come back in the next couple and trust me, a lot is going to change in public transit for the better.
Personally I don't know why we're extending the metromover to Miami beach instead of the metrorail
@@j-train13 It's about Money and at $100 Million per mile it would cost about $1 Billion for Metrorail to cross Biscayne Bay. Currently Metrobus transports about 14,000 passengers a day between Miami Beach & downtown which is more than enough riders to warrant a Metrorail extension. The County should have been pursuing Federal Monies for this a long time ago.
The Metro Mover extension from downtown Miami to Miami Beach is now at risk because of one more example of NIMBYs The project was financed by county, state and federal money but Miami Beach City Commission voted against it, their argument is that it shouldn't come thru Miami Beach but somewhere north of them. The resolution didnt kill the project but now there is an ongoing legal battle where wealthy residents of the area have promised to stall the thing as long as they can. So we won't see that thing running at least until Miami Beach is under water by the end of the century
@@maumor2 What do these Wealthy NIMBYs think is going to happen to South Beach? Have they've seen what goes on there during Spring Break & Memorial Day Weekend? 😝🤪😜
Great video! As someone who moved from Chicago to South Florida, I was sad to see that Miami's Metromover system is lacking in a lot of critical zones. I guess I was beyond spoiled with the CTA in Chicago...
As for safety, I agree that there can be some weird people but my main technique on transit has always been to have an airpod in one side, open ear on the other (typically the side facing the middle of the train or the most people). I've seen cops and security onboard the train before, so that has made me feel safer.
The handdrawn map is sending me, I love it!
Its actually PowerPoint
Amazing video once again! I have a newfound appreciation for the expansive diversity of Miami's transit network, in addition to Brightline. Each one isn't perfect, but they're all special in their own way, and I now see that Miami showcases so many of them in great ways (another diversity feat is Tri Rail's diverse roster, consisting of GP49s and until recently, experimental bilevel DMUs from Colorado Railcar). Also, the Tri Rail Fort Lauderdale reminds me of the Grand Floridian resort in Dosney World, a hotel I would visit often when traveling to Disney, with the overall design and welcoming attitude, which is an aspect that's not found too often at commuter rail stations.
So sorry to hear what happened to you on metrorail :( My experience on metrorail and metromover back in February was some of the safest, most pleasant transit I’ve ever experienced, although it probably helps that the most recent experiences I have to compare to are post pandemic CTA, plus I rode metrorail early in the morning to the airport with a police officer on board for most of the ride and even if that wasn’t the case, my three day stay is a small anecdotal snapshot that doesn’t really mean much in the grand scheme of things. My Brightline ride from MCO to MIA central was also nice, but the price was a little steep imo, I just pray they get rid of the dreaded DOTS(!!!) because they completely ruined the beautiful south Florida scenery. Also glad to know what the arch is for, I passed under it multiple times on my bike rides as well as going by it multiple times on the MetroMover to and from the apartment I booked in Edgewater.
Oh, just got to the part where you mentioned not having any Cuban food, you’ll have to try some next time because you really missed out. Some highlights from my trip were some Cuban frita burgers, a breakfast sandwich made with a sweet bread roll called pan medianoche (literally “midnight bread”) and WAY too many guava pastelitos from Sergio’s Go! in Brickell. Needless to say, between all the great food in Miami and pigging out at a Mexican Bakery during my overnight stay in Detroit, I was having to get creative to avoid getting plied with food at every turn while visiting my aunt in Grand Rapids the following week lmao.
From videos I've seen, many of the newer wraps don't have the dots...
@@RobertAshburn yeah, I heard that they were getting a lot of complaints and considering making changes, I’d prefer no wrap at all over the windows (unless you count a reasonable window tint as “wrapping”), but any improvement in visibility is a welcome change imo
Don't let one bad apple ruin the bunch. I'm sorry you've had a bad experience with the MetroMover but please do know it's been pretty good for most of us down south. Try it again one day!
FELLOW TRAVEL TRANSIT UA-camR - love this video haha
The last time I took Tri-Rail was 1989 when I pulled a Miles-in-Transit-esque family drag to ride the system round trip end to end.
I live in Miami and love taking the metro whenever I can. I’ve recently took it for over 7 days last year to the World Baseball Classic with a free shuttle to the ballpark.
There are talks and plans to expand the metro north ending at the county line and would have a stop near the football stadium where the Dolphins and University of Miami play. This would be great because the Hard Rock hosts other major sporting events and concerts.
With Brightline, not only are you connected to the theme parks and the international airport in Orlando, but they've been building housing by the stations, and for cruise goers, it's a great way to get to the cruise ports! The system of the Metrorail dropping people off downtown and the Metromover connecting them with the rest of downtown is basically what Detroit was aiming to achieve. The Detroit People Mover was meant to be a downtown circulator of a bigger regional plan with different rail lines and the then SEMTA Commuter Rail being expanded to Ann Arbor and Port Huron as feeders. Detroit and the suburbs couldn't agree on anything for the 600 mil. promised by Gerald Ford and so only the circulator got built before federal money was withdrawn by Reagan. Metrorail being elevated makes sense because of both the Floridian water table and not having to deal with FDOT. When the Metrorail system first opened in 1984, it opened with the MetroPath or M-Path underneath the tracks, originally a 10.5-mile trail for cyclists that crosses different intersections. This was built along the former the Florida East Coast Railway's main line ROW between Miami and Kendall, which was abandoned in 1972 and purchased by the county in 1979 for Metrorail.
As a result of the success of the High Line in NYC, plans were made to revamp the MetroPath in 2014 as a linear park, dubbed the Underline. The first phase was completed in Brickell in 2021, the second phase from Brickell to just south of Vizcaya station was completed in April 2024, and when the third phase is completed, it will be completed to Dadeland South! Besides being a path for jogging and cyclists, it features things like bike repair stations, exercise equipment, art installations, and will provide access to public transportation to a university, over 20 schools, hospitals, urgent care facilities, major malls and over 10,000 businesses! Just south of Dadeland South, the paved path continues south as the South Dade Trail, all the way to Florida City. The entire route forms a 31-mile corridor!
The Vancouver SkyTrain is a more fully realized vision of the detroit people mover (both systems use the same hybrid third rail/linear motor propulsion system)
You pretty much have to drive everywhere in Miami. Walking is nearly nonexistent. The bus system is horrible after they changed the routes (every bus is full of people now)(what's funnier is that when they made the busses free for two months, they weren't as packed). The politicians and residents in Miami Beach are so full of themselves that they rejected an alternative to getting off their dogshit island that doesn't involve driving on the causeways. Something else to mention is that in Miami Beach, Coral Gables, Downtown Miami, etc. they have these trolleys which are operated by the city and are pretty much glorified busses (except for the ones in Miami Beach that are scary to be on). Great Video tho.
I used both Metro transit and Tri rail the last time I was in Miami. I was happy it served Hialeah since I was going there for the casino. It’s a shame they do not have horse racing there anymore. It was one of the most beautiful tracks in America. With all the traffic in the Miami area any rail system should do good as long as it serves areas where people want to go.
You forgot to mention Fortress Capital the owners of Brightline also own the Florida East Coast Rail Road. Also the Miami Metro plans to explain a line to Aventura. Other than that good video. There is one more rideable train in South Florida. There a full size Train at the Train museum next to Miami Zoo that rideable.
FDOT fixed the issue with the platforms at the intermodal center. It's not necessarily that the platforms are too short but that the train would be so long that they would block car traffic at the north crossing. FDOT fixed this by making an auxiliary road for the cars in case the long Amtrak trains block the crossing.
As an Miamian Myself, I would say that the urban transit systems indeed need serious revamping.
Great video from a Pensacola, Florida resident.
Now that's straight up the best illustrative system map I've seen for this area, thank you - sorry you had to go through the wars to make it happen \m/
The title got a little chuckle out of me, we do have some strange trains atleast we have them in the end.
Tri-Rail has a special place in my heart as it was the first train system (if you don't count metrorail) that I rode as a kid and it definitely helped me appreciate train travel to this day. I don't live by it but its an interesting system and I'm glad to see it expanded to downtown and the airport in recent years. I haven't rode brightline but I do appreciate it a lot, for it being in florida its impressive htey were able to get it running but i do hope that commuter rail can be put onto those tracks.
The metrorail is pretty neat, I've rode it quite a few times especially recently. The old budd cars are nostalgic for me but the newer ones are much more quiet, and just look better so I'm thankful for them. I myself haven't faced any violence or stuff on the train but im really sorry you did it sucks having experienced it in another transit system. Thankfully atleast in my experience and a family member who uses it daily it seems to be a rare occasion as we both haven't encountered it you just got really unlucky sadly its always something i make sure to check my surroundings for just in case. It really does need 2-3 more lines to be a true system that can servce large amounts of the city. The metromover is strange but it works well and is free, can't really complain about it being people movers as it works, is frequent and thats what really matters.
Miami Beach is not just a tourist destination; it’s a vibrant, livable city with a community of around 100,000 residents.
So I'm a south Florida native and if you ever come back down, I'd give you a tour and show you the good cuban food options.
I've ridden Tri-Rail for two years now, sometimes three trains a day. The majority of the passengers come from the airports from my understanding. Some, like me, are going to/from universities, colleges, or schools that do not provide a yellow bus service. I used to see a lot of yellow school buses parked outside stations, picking up schoolkids aged from elementary to high school. Later on, I used Tri-Rail for both school and work. Like most South Floridians, I didn't even know that it existed since the stations are often inconspicuous. If you use rail transit in conjunction with bus transit, there are virtually no limits to where you can go. Other services like Freebee, Uber and Lyft discounts, and Metromover help in a similar fashion.
Your analysis at the end about Miami's urban sprawl is pretty spot-on. Another thing to note is that most stations outside of Palm Beach County bear no resemblance to each other. The FTL Airport station you showed, for example, contrasts sharply with the one right before it, FTL Broward Blvd., one of the Amtrak stations. Biggest problem with the trains is not fellow passengers or access but the innumerable delays and inconsistencies in service. Sorry to hear about that happening to you on Metrorail, though.
Great video! I’ve never ridden Tri-Rail, but I’m really surprised to learn that it has higher ridership than MARC, especially considering how MARC directly serves both Baltimore and Washington and mainline Tri-Rail services miss downtown Miami by miles!
Great, informative video! Thank you
That comment from Reagan makes my blood boil!
I wonder whether the new GTA Vice City game will have any trains (probably not). I think it says something that GTA games based in New York and LA all feature trains of one type or another, but not Miami.
Sorry you had that violent experience! The worst I’ve ever had is a guy on BART who was saying stuff like the state of California has kidnapped me and going around trying to converse with passengers, but it was definitely not physical!
If i had a nickel for every train in Florida, I’d have 4 nickels. it’s not a lot, but it’s weird that it happened 4 times (in a row)
i rode most of Floridas transit
I think the Orange Line is a perfect case study on branch naming in transit, since it’s effectively a branch of the Green Line. Personally, I would prefer branches where pretty much all trains running the other direction end at the same place are considered just one line, like Metrorail, the branches at the bottom of the Chicago Green line, the Red and Gold lines in Atlanta; while trains that consistently run to different end points should be treated as different lines, like the Blue and Green lines in Atlanta or pretty much every service in NYC.
10:05 good lord, we need to be removing freeways from downtowns, not building new ones. Pfft.
The TriRail train from the MetroRail transfer station to downtown Miami is a complete waste of resources. You still have to get off the train, move to the other platform, and then wait for the shuttle train to downtown. Or you could catch the MetroRail to the same location.
On the weekends, the last two trains are at 6:00 PM and 9:00 PM. The shuttle train should be taken from downtown service and used to fill in that 3 hour gap.
The Tri-Rail station in Broward County is in the parking lot of Bass Prop Shops
as someone who lived in all three of these cities (some years without a car) i am hyper obsessed with this topic yet also dont care anymore and have decided to just leave. Miami will never be built for its people, it exists as a playground for wealthy people from all over the world.
Very cool video! Good to see Brightline might actually launch or at least allow commuter rail on a line where it actually needs it most. And hopefully with the upcoming success of Brightline West they will hopefully re-evaluate and think about electrification of the mainline so that they could offer faster passenger services along the existing corridor. Not horribly faster, but 125 MPH/200 KMH running speed would be great since this is the threshold by which you can basically still have at grade crossings in North America IF you upgrade and isolate the ROW as much as possible, something I see lacking in every smash-up news story on Brightline and its unfortunate kill count vs. people looking to beat the train the old fashioned way...
Great video as always. Side note its pronounced "Brick-al" like Nickel.
That's the best pronunciation of Brickell I've heard so far! 👍
WAIT WE HAVE TRAINS?!
Oh from Pittsburgh!! I'm from Miami but I'm half a Penguins fan!!!! Go Panthers! Go Penguins!
What's the other half?
@ClassyWhale Panthers lol. Penguins have been my favorite animal since I was a kid
It seems that the FEC commuter rail if built would be very successful since the rail line is lined with more walkable communities that we built around train service in contrast to Tri-Rail passing through mainly industrial areas.
I would take the tri rail and metromover to ultra miami (bayfront park) and it was always late
Nice that you managed to cover so much of Miami's transit network in 14 minutes. I think the success of Brightline in has the potential to kickstart a new inter-city rail renaissance on this continent.
also 9:26 the lines you drew are clockwise even though you said counterclockwise
Evadeable fare gates are the best.
So about the state of Tri-rail's rolling stock, I'll say the same thing I said to Trains Are Awesome, and it's that you both got unlucky, as there's actually a few different rolling stock models in service and unfortunately you were on the oldest one. The newer coaches feel a LOT more modern in comparison (even the water fountains seem drinkable!), the seats are more comfortable (and have a twos layout instead of fours, with the exception of tables though they do still have work to be done in all honesty, but it's still much better than what you got
P.S. I am upset that you cut off the map of the old Florida East Coast Railway before it showed the GLORY that was the Overseas Railway. All the way to Key West baby
10:04 Wait thats supposed to be a bridge? Ive lived in miami my whole life and i didnt know thats gonna be a bridge
Did I see a GO Transit bud driving on the highway that the Outer Loop Metromover passed over? I trust that was a private coach operator who hadn’t bothered to repaint their second hand buses because I don’t think Government of Ontario Transit runs service outside Ontario given their name.
You've never heard of Greater Orlando transit?
@@ClassyWhale Greater Orlando Transit is called GO Transit, though here is a town in wisconsin that stole our name.
So the reason Amtrak doesn't run out of Miami Airport is due to long train consist and not enough platform? You'd think they would've planned for that or built the road over the tracks. Maybe they didn't do enough research 😆
Here's a suggestion: Depart Miami Airport, add the additional cars at the older Miami Station and then continue on.
Amtrak does this with other trains: Lake Shore Limited in Albany when it splits. The Texas Eagle leaves one Superliner Coach in St. Louis, etc. I know logistics and rolling stock availability would come into play, but it would be an option.
The Road is there (NW 25th. Street) the problem is that when the FDOT was planning the Station they didn't figure in how long the AMTRAK trains were & would block the Road. That street has smaller Rental car companies that objected to having their main business road being blocked.
Nice pic of Cleveland's red line
Brightline needs a station at FLL.
I KNOW
Wish Tampa could build commuter rail
Someone should make a easter egg mod of a Caleb NPC riding the metro in GTA VI...
i suppose four cities, if you count the Morgantown PRT
8:50 why public transit will never work in the US
Is this comment supposed to be sarcastic or do you actually believe that?
Miami also has a large haitian population. And haitian food is quite delicious. FYI
I know this fact from experience 🇭🇹 there's a great place in Lynn MA with this amazing chicken soup that Kalkidan and I were obsessed with for a while
Only time I was robbed in my entire life happened on the Miami Metrorail. So glad to not live anywhere near there anymore. Safe in Chicago with real functional transit.
It only works for people in high income areas
It’s because they’re in Florida 💀
You don't need to buy an easy card if your debit/credit allows tap.
6:13 Is that an RTS?
10:20 NOW THAT IS A FUN FACT
Wouldn’t it be wild if Amtrak was kicked out of Florida and the tri rail combined with the metro via 3rd rail electrification or hybrid catenary/3rd rail trains for Miami 😅wasted opportunity no?
what
ik alex
It's a shame you were harassed by someone on the Metrorail. I would have just gotten off and taken the next train. Of all the US's metros, Miami is probably one of the safest, I have never encountered problems on it. Ironically, the Metromover is the least safe of the trains and has incidents every so often, usually at night.
Since you didn't go to Government Center Station, you missed the ghost platform on the second level which at one point would have been the East/West line before they scrapped expansion plans.
Hopefully the system gets expanded someday but there is no local political interest and every time an expansion plan comes along, the county commissioners siphon the money away for pet projects.
The southern Busway expansion is currently underway as a Rapid Bus Transit [BRT] with the capability to "Convert To Metrorail" if demand picks up, but I doubt that will ever happen.
They are working on the Metromover expansion to the beach but there is a lot of NIMBY pushback currently stalling it.
The NIMBY push back about Rail to South Beach is funny though! Have they seen what their City turns into during Spring Break, Memorial Day & Urban Beach Weekend? 😂🤣😋
Attention commenters, there’s a Phineas and Ferb reference somewhere in this comment section
Is that a GO Transit bus at 10:22?
Maybe!
People movers for the win. The Omni loop is my favorite mover track in Miami. Downtown Miami was much more exciting in the early 90's. It's basically a wasteland currently.
No reason to really go there, but the 'Bayside' area is nice at night. That's where the action and fun is. Thanks for visiting my hometown!
"A heavy metro panned by Ronald Reagan." I instantly fell in love with this train.
REAGAN basically killed any hope & funding of expanding Metro Rail with that speech. Imagine trying to build a 25 Mile/40 Km Heavy Rail Line in the US today for $1 Billion dollars! REAGAN didn't know a bargain when he saw one!
I think you're going to talk about that incident on the Metrorail while you're filming there. Much love from a non-carbrained New Yorker.
8:24 me too
no seriously
Not in Miami
I was going to ride the SunRunner
also no credit
"more than MARC" maryland continuing to catch strays over our horribly underfunded transit service....
DC having lower in office then most cities certainly doesn’t help
@@sammymarrco47 That & the fact that I think when people think about DC 'suburbs' with a lot of population commuting regularly into the city, ppl think about the places that the Metro serves. The Marc actually goes a lot further. Which is a nice thing that I think they underutilized. (Mostly due to scheduling scheme I think).
@@davidfreeman3083 marc *might* cover the most of any state by commuter rail
I still don’t sympathize with people who don’t want to ride trains because that sort of thing could happen. That sort of thing could happen at all sorts of places - walking down the street, whatever.
@@rynovoski yeah but that's not an enclosed space with no discernable Safe Person to step in in that exact moment
Cincinnati looks rather dead.
That's Miami
Sorry for having someone harass you, not a good first impression of Miami :(
Featuring two cults at 2:38 and 11:10
HA
This map doesn’t really fit it’s a little clustered
Ronald Reagan saying something dumb? No way!
Yeah, no... I live in Miami and you did not have that drug addict thing happen, security is extremely tight between MIA and the orange line terminus, also you filmed an empty train car but somehow someone magically appeared.
A, the cars are in married pairs so the sorts of people who don't care about rules can walk between cars while the train is in motion.
B. Please see what other people have written - security is not airtight.
C. What do I stand to gain from making up the story?
Incompetence, laziness and stupidity (ie, Government) are the reasons Amtrak doesn't serve the intermodal center. They should all be fired. The State & County spend a pile of money reconfiguring the roads to accommodate the longer trains but Amtrak just whines about it being too hard to back into the terminal. Instead, we're stuck with the POS, middle of nowhere Miami Station that doesn't even have level boarding.
President Regan was _not_ lying so you lose. Annualized ridership, even over 3 years. This is why TransitTube can be so cringey.
Private = Operating.
Public = Fantasy.
So it would have been cheaper to buy 10,000 limousines?
@@ClassyWhale Yes. That's how math works, and how Government projects work.
In 1985 dollars, that $Billion *subsidy* would have covered those 10,000 riders using Uber for nearly 20 years.
Shouldn't be any surprise that the best experience of you trip was the entirely privately financed Brightline. (Yes, it was, don't bother with the PABs or county stations.)
I know you kids have been indoctrinated with Public = Good, Private = Bad but this trip proves otherwise.
You should be advocating for privatizing transit like Hong Kong or Tokyo instead of endlessly hoping the MTA or Amtrak can get their act together (never going to happen).
@@rapunzel1701 but what about the 10,001st rider? And the 10,002nd? This argument presumes that only the initial glut of riders would keep riding. To subsidize further rideshare - more people come of age and move to Miami, etc - you'd need to funnel quite a bit more money, eventually topping the cost of rapid transit.
@@ClassyWhale Glad you asked! Since 1985, the Miami metro area has seen seen roughly a doubling of population, yet Metro-Rail rider ship is only 30k per day. Yes, that's a 3x increase but the roughly 10k delta over population growth is pathetic. Why? This was a political vanity project that didn't actually server the transit needs of the area, Government does this. Airport service only started in 2012 and there's no service to Marlins Stadium, PortMiami, Joe Robbie or anyplace else people actually want to go. And it's still way faster to Uber from Dadeland South to MIA. Fail.
Metro-Rail's primary customer base is Gov employees that work at either Government Center or Jackson so it's really government transit.
Transit advocates would do way better calling out the bureaucratic incompetence than whining about 'funding' and other nonsense.
@@rapunzel1701 Where are you getting your Stats from? Metrorail carries over 50k a day in the Q1-2024 APTA stats. As for going to the Joe Robbie/ Miami Dolphins stadium why should they extend Metrorail to a facility that is used maybe 2 dozen times a year?