MIAMI – Miami-Dade County leaders are ditching a plan to run buses down the Dolphin Expressway and are instead considering two new options, including a Metromover line running above Flagler Street as part of a long-term plan to connect downtown Miami with Florida International University, according to a report in Miami Today.
The publication reports that the county is also considering a commuter rail line along an east-west route.
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According to Miami Today, those plans came during a meeting of the county’s Transportation Planning Organization, where commissioners voted unanimously to ask the Florida Department of Transportation to sidetrack a planned bus rapid transit study and instead use the money to study an elevated people mover along Flagler.
Discussions over acquiring the westbound CSX rail line for commuter rail transit also took place last year.
Miami-Dade Commissioner Eileen Higgins said a Metromover extension to FIU could get commuters between the campus and downtown within “35 or 40 minutes,” Miami Today reports.
According to the publication, the ideas remain “sketchy,” with no price tags or timetables given.
The idea of extending the Metromover system westward isn’t new: In 2014, the TPO commissioned a study that included a look at expanding the train west through Little Havana to what was then known as Marlins Park.
Other expansion proposals have included extensions to South Beach and Miami’s Design District.