• Nov. 16, 2008Residents unload anger at failing transit

  More than 600 people gave up a sunny Saturday to talk about the shortcomings of the local transit system in spite of a half-cent sales tax that was supposed to build new rail lines to every corner of the county.
  

• Sept. 3, 2008Transit fare hike may save bus routes

  County commissioners reluctantly raised fares to spare the existing bus system but failed to fill a $9.4 billion hole in the transit agency's budget.
  

• Aug. 25, 2008Proposed cuts a blow for riders

  The hits keep coming for Miami-Dade Transit's beleaguered riders and the voters who supported a half-cent sales tax in 2002 with the promise of expanded rail and bus service.
  

• July 28, 2008North Metrorail plan sure to fail again

  Barring a highly unlikely miracle, the Metrorail North Corridor extension along Northwest 27th Avenue through the heart of the black community is as good as dead for at least another year.

• July 17, 2008Expansion at risk

  Miami-Dade's deficit-plagued Transit agency has new problems -- 9.4 billion of them -- that put the dream of expanding Metrorail at risk.

Miami-Dade elected leaders will gather Saturday for an unusual summit at which they will publicly acknowledge they can't come close to delivering all the promises of the half-cent sales tax approved in 2002.

The leaders and top county managers will try to navigate a delicate balance: explaining where the money went, letting the public vent for hours and then trying to lower expectations for future expansion.

"We know they're going to rip us," County Commissioner Dennis Moss said. "People are angry."

Moss persuaded a majority of his fellow commissioners and Mayor Carlos Alvarez's administration that Saturday's summit at the Miami Mart Airport Hotel was a necessary step if the county ever hopes to expand the troubled transit system -- and get out from under a continuing political morass.

Alvarez said he understands the public's frustration. In an interview this week, the mayor said he was among those persuaded to vote for the tax when he was police director in 2002; he went so far as to convince his skeptical relatives to support it, as well.

The sales tax was supposed to attract billions in matching federal dollars, revolutionize the transit system and unclog the region's traffic-choked streets.

Six years and more than $900 million later, most of the money has been spent propping up routine operations at the county's deficit-plagued transit agency or on tiny public works contracts that have done little to improve traffic flow.

"Promises were made -- not by us -- that we couldn't keep," Alvarez said. "If my administration has a fault [in this], it's that we've taken five years . . . trying hard to keep these promises. But we have to face facts."

Alvarez recognizes there isn't enough money to come close to fulfilling all of the ambitious promises that former Mayor Alex Penelas laid out in the People's Transportation Plan.

"One plus one equals two. It doesn't equal four," Alvarez said. "It's time to move forward."

Shortly after the 2002 election, top county and transit leaders slid more than $700 million in additional projects into the spending plan that voters never considered, a Miami Herald investigation revealed this year.

Instead of "New Money for New Projects" the county was now paying to repair, replace and update problems that had not been dealt with for decades.

Commissioners gutted a Citizens Independent Transportation Trust from the outset, replacing it with a rubber-stamp advisory panel with limited powers that is often outflanked by top county managers and transit leaders.

Today, voters who were expecting 88.9 miles of new Metrorail lines will be lucky if they get a single, 2.4-mile spur in the next decade. Bus service is up 19 percent over 2002 -- a far cry from the 66 percent increase promised in the People's Transportation Plan campaign.

In an interview earlier this year, Penelas said he wouldn't support the tax today if he could have foreseen the faulty assumptions and mismanagement that surfaced.

Alvarez and Moss are hoping the summit will close a chapter on the mistakes of the past and then move the conversation forward, setting realistic goals with a limited pool of money.

Even if the county wins matching federal funds to build three promised new Metrorail lines to the northern and western suburbs, it would need to raise another $9.4 billion to operate and maintain the system over the next 30 years.

That would require whopping increases in property taxes and gas taxes, and eliminate free transit rides for seniors. The county would also have to renege on a deal that currently allows municipalities to share 20 percent of the sales tax proceeds.

After a bruising fight to simply raise fares by 50 cents, neither Alvarez nor commissioners are likely to support such measures.

"I hope there's a realization of what we're really dealing with here," Moss said. "Even if we do nothing, just maintaining the existing system is going to be a real difficult thing."

Alvarez wants commissioners and the community to consider several less-expensive options. Among them:

• Will a community that has been waiting for Metrorail on Northwest 27th Avenue for more than three decades be willing to support light rail or express buses instead?

• Should the community give up on Metrorail expansion altogether?

• Is light rail to the northern or western suburbs even affordable considering the transit agency's continuing cash crunch?

Large crowds are expected, notably from the predominantly black communities along the Northwest 27th Avenue corridor that have been promised Metrorail since the 1970s.

"We were sold a bill of goods a long time ago," said Terry Waldron, who has supported the rail line for 15 years. "They're saying to us, 'Y'all signed up for a cruise to South America, but the boat's heading over to Nassau.' The ship's already left the port and now we have to find our own way. Same old story."

If Saturday's setting at the Miami Merchandise Mart seems familiar to mass transit diehards, there's a reason.

In 2002, Penelas sponsored two large summits at the same center. More than 2,000 people brainstormed, compiling the wish lists that became the People's Transportation Plan.

Another likely flash point at the summit: the county's continuing attempts to remove the few strings that still remain on the money.

The county says that after six years it needs even more flexibility to throw the sales tax money into the pot of revenues used for everyday transit operations.

The citizens trust is trying to force the county to set aside enough money to guarantee that some of the priority bus or rail projects promised in 2002 will be built before it removes the restrictions on any leftover funds.

Critics say the so-called "unification" of the transit revenues would be the last act in a bait-and-switch with voters.

"To me, it's just a breach of trust with the voters, and I don't think we'd ever recover from it," said citizens trust member Paul Schwiep, who would oppose such a change.

Robert Beatty, owner-publisher of the South Florida Times and a former general counsel at The Miami Herald, will mediate.

"The great value of moments like this is that people will be heard."