Update on “The Wave”, Fort Lauderdale’s Light Rail System to nowhere…
Update on “The Wave”, Fort Lauderdale’s Light Rail System to nowhere…
Last year I commented on a project that is as wasteful of taxpayer dollars as it is useless as a transportation system; “The Wave”, a light rail system dreamed up by property owners of Fort Lauderdale’s Downtown Development Authority (DDA).
For a history, go to: http://abetterftlauderdale.com/?p=291 to see my analysis last year of this project. This group of multi-millionaires have been working quietly with local politicians (perhaps “greasing some palms”?) to get government tax dollars to pay for a large part of this 2.7 mile light rail system in downtown Fort Lauderdale.
The project on the surface seems interesting. A light rail system that would help to project Fort Lauderdale as a forward-thinking City, with a transportation system to handle future growth. It would be a perfect way to transport people around a mixed use area of cafes, shops and residential buildings. But we don’t have that. After my analysis (and a subsequent meeting I had with DDA executives last year), I’ve learned that this project is little more than a way for Downtown property owners to increase the value of their own properties.
That is why the DDA members were willing to put up millions of dollars for this project. The rail system would go along their properties, immediately increasing their values. The same concept that you’ve seen numerous times on the “old west” movies, individuals want the railroad lines to go where their properties lie. It makes them wealthy.
Now, I don’t have an issue with that as long as the DDA members pay for all of it, but here are the reasons that I am against “The Wave”:
1. The DDA group wants taxpayers (you and me) to pay for part of the construction costs.
2. The DDA group wants taxpayers to foot the bill for the operation of it. And if it operated at as loss (as it most assuredly would), we would be on the hook for millions more, year after year.
3. There is no ridership to warrant the expense. The tracks form a loop. You have to be on the loop and want to go somewhere on that loop in order for you to want to ride it. The only people who might consider riding it would be:
a. downtown businessmen going to business meetings or lunch
b. those people who want to go to Broward General Hospital, or
c. those condo owners living in the Flagler area
This is not a large enough group to justify the tens of millions of taxpayer dollars that would be spent building and maintaining it. The project is expected to cost almost $130 million dollars or almost $50 Million dollars per mile.
4. If it ever gets installed, the rail cars will be one more thing we’ll have to avoid on the roadways of downtown. Congestion isn’t bad now, but it will become bad as these mostly empty rail cars compete for road space.
5. It would conflict with plans to establish a north-south commuter rail system along the existing FEC tracks (I’ll be reporting on that in the next couple of weeks).
6. Look at the local bus system (and the local trolley that travels around downtown and along Las Olas Boulevard). Neither has ridership. What would cause the Wave to have any more riders?.
And now we have this. A Federal Government Watchdog Group, “Citizens Against Government Waste” is now listing this project as the second worst pork barrel spending project for transportation this year. For details, go to this link: http://www.cagw.org/newsroom/releases/2010/pork-alert-house.html to see what they say about this waste of taxpayer dollars. (I’ve been saying that this was a waste of money; now a federal watch dog group agrees with me….)
Unfortunately, two of our local politicians : Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) and Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.) are behind the scenes trying to secure funding for this wasteful project. They should be spending their resources trying to get the north-south commuter rail project implemented along the FEC tracks first, before doing favors for the wealthy DDA property owners.
Do you agree that this is a waste of taxpayer money? Then call them and object to this project! Here are their phone numbers:
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz: (954) 437-3936
Rep. Alcee Hastings: (954) 773-2800
Let them know how you feel about this!
Earl Rynerson
Reader Comments
I TOTALLY AGREE WITH YOU! THEY HAVE A WAY ,OF US TAX PAYER TO FOOT THE BILL ALL THE TIME WE HAVE TO WAKE UP AND VOICE OUR OPIONS NOT ENOUGH PEOPLE OUT THEIR THAT GIVE TO CR….. THANK YOU FOR SPEAKING OUT!!
Earl; you have clearly not bothered to read even one of the books I mentioned in my last response to your embarrassing ignorance related to this subject. You are acting a badly as anyone you have pointed a finger at. They are ignorant and/or self-serving, and then you show me you are the same as they are. Our hope for an educated and experienced new leader will have to move on elsewhere. Sorry to see you have not been studying any solutions or discovered it all starts at home by example.
I have been involved in transit in Fort Lauderdale for the past 10 years, first attending the 2005 and 2020 Broward County Transit Workshops in late 1999, then joining the Downtown Fort Lauderdale Transportation Management Association, becoming a member on the cities ad-hoc committee on transportation in 2003 and then the city’s technical advisor to the Downtown Broward County Mobility Study, which latter be came the “Wave” project now lead by the DDA. When I started my involvement here I thought I knew everything there was to know about public transit, having grown up in the Boston suburbs from age seven taking a bus to the trolley stop then to Fenway Park in downtown. Latter I took similar routes to school and then work. Well I found that experience does not always equal education. So I started reading books like The Geography of Urban Transportation, Third Edition by Susan Hanson, The Transit Metropolis by Robert Cervero, Urban Transit by Vukan R. Vuchic, Taking the High Road by Bruce Katz; Robert Puentes’ Air Quality Analysis for Urban Transportation Planning by Joel Horowitz, Urban Transportation Planning in the United States: History, Policy, and Practice by Edward Weiner , The beginnings of mass transportation in urban America by George Rogers Taylor, Brief history of mass transportation in the Seattle urban area by Michael W Voris, Cash, Tokens, & Transfers: A History of Urban Mass Transit in North America by Brian Cudahy, The Taxicab: An Urban Transportation Survivor by Gorman Gilbert and Robert E. Samuels, From Streetcar to Superhighway: American City Planners and Urban Transportation, 1900-1940, Uptown-Downtown Horsecars-Trolley Cars: Urban Transportation in Kingston, New York 1866-1930 by Glendon L. Moffett, and about a dozen others relate to urban planning and automobile related development sprawl.
The rail plan for Fort Lauderdale has been underway since 2002. It was first going down SW 2nd street serving an isolate population and certain property owners as well as equipment suppliers. Then it was looping north and south on Andrews and 3rd Avenue within the DDA territory serving a little broader community which included the courthouse, university and colleges. Now finally after 8 years of tinkering and millions of dollars of study the system will connect the Hospital (8,000 workers and visitors a day with Parking) to the courthouse (6,000 workers and visitors a day with parking) and the college and university (5,000 students, workers and teacher). This is a plan that truly serves the living and working population of the downtown core who need and will use transit. And yes this route will increase property values so we can afford the taxes to pay for it.
You benefit from the road my tax dollars paid for to your house and business even if I never go there it will benefit me as well by supporting the economy and property values. Same with all public utilities. And the same is true of all public transit. Routes that do not serve a population like some of the current Trolley routes are not getting direct federal dollars and the Wave is. When the FTA looks at the request they look for projects that serve populations that will make it a success. That is why the project morphed into what it is today because the DDA realized what the Fed’s want to fund and they finally responded. That is how it has worked in many cities chasing the same federal transit money.
In the future the system will connect to the airport and seaport, and the rubber tire trolleys will connect it to tri-rail and the neighborhoods. It all has to start somewhere, and plan makes sense to me. That why I put my office on south Andrews near the hospital and downtown 20 years ago and have work hard to see the plan develop into something that will work for everybody in Broward County.
Hi Michael! I understand your frustration with me because I have an opinion different than yours. I know that you will benefit financially if this system gets constructed along your street, but I also know that there is a track record of these light rail systems becoming an “ornament” for a city more than a real transportation system. That’s especially true if that system is not part of an overall in-place regional transportation plan. Your comments about the publications and history of many light rail systems don’t change the fact that taxpayers here are being asked to fund something that serves a fraction of a minority of residents. Don’t get me wrong, I like the idea of having a light rail system here in Fort Lauderdale. But it should be coordinated with the main north-south rail corridor that is already here, along the FEC tracks. The FEC commuter rail corridor (under consideration now), would link Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale and Miami together and would be used as an alternative to I-95. The Wave project plan runs a light rail line almost parallel (and only a few blocks away) from that rail line. That’s duplication. Despite this duplication of rail services, if the DDA were to avoid asking for public funding and if the DDA would be willing to pay for the operation of the system (at least until it became profitable), then I would have no objection with the plan. But that’s not the way the plan is now. I’m sorry, but I have to agree with the Federal watchdog program “Citizens Against Government Waste” (CAGW). In this economy especially, this a waste of taxpayer money.
Earl
The FEC project is a commuter rail (Jupiter - downtown Miami), while the Wave is a Streetcar. Streetcars are basically a rail version of a local bus w/ greater frequency, where as commuter rail has ROW and greater distance between stops. I believe current FEC plans have a stop at Government Center and the next stop south would be at 17th St, ~1.5 miles between station (within a larger city). Comparing Streetcars to commuter rail = apples to organes…
But more about the Wave. The Wave’s route is questionable, in my opinion. The priority should have been a DIRECT connection with Tri-Rail and downtown/Central Terminal via Broward Blvd and possible further east serving shopping/entertainment (+local residents/tourists), and our largest park, the beach, via Las Olas Blvd. A phase two of the Wave could later connect Broward General and Flagler Village (and beyond?) via Andrews/3rd Ave (aka: the current Wave’s proposed route). Why create a local rail route without a direct connection with our current regional transit line? I don’t understand that. Tril-Rail -> Rt22 or Tri-Rail Shuttle Bus to -> Wave, and vice versa, does not make much sense. Transfers add more time to your trip, you miss your transfer (due to late trains/buses or whatever), that’s more time onto your commute. But with FDOT’s Central Broward Transit project, if a Streetcar is chosen (over BRT) it would essentially create above two phase Streetcar network I just described. …Although that wouldn’t be until ~2022.
Alex-
I agree with you. You ask “Why is the Wave not built to Tri-rail?” It’s simple. The DDA have been pushing for this; their main interest is in furthering their own property values, not in developing a light rail system that actually takes people anywhere. It’s a special interest group at work here.
Earl
This is pretty interesting, since there a Zero percent chance that Wasserman-Schultz will have this in her district after 2011 redistricting. Downtown Las Olas is completely different now than it was in 2000 and they’re not going to carve it into a democratic throwaway as they did then.
Wasserman-Schultz and Hastings don’t seem like the types to be trying to help the wealthy. Its more likely that they are looking to secure a big project for the unions that are going to build it. The Sun Trolly and Cab drivers are private companies; which doesn’t fit their big government agenda.
A public transportation project that would cost more than providing every resident in the area with a private limo makes zero sense. It figures that Wasserman-Schultz is involved with it.
It appears that 1.7M in funding for this was “secured” in the Fiscal Year 2011 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations bill by DWS and Hastings. I think if we find out who is benefiting from the building of this project we’ll have the source of the political corruption. There aren’t enough voters benefiting to make this worth the effort of 2 congresspersons. Its got to be the organizations getting the lion’s share of the 130M to build it. DWS secures money for police unions and the sugar industry. She doesn’t secure money for anything that will help regular people.