Miami-Dade spent $80 million on transit studies. Now obsolete, they’re being redone.

It was in the late 1990s when a consulting engineer named Alice Bravo was assigned to an ambitious study: how to extend rail west into the Miami-Dade suburbs. Some 20 years later, Bravo runs the county’s Transportation Department and Miami-Dade is once again studying the same thing.

“That was when I was a little girl. I worked on it,” Bravo joked Thursday after a meeting of Miami-Dade’s Transportation Planning Organization, which two years ago authorized a new study on whether to extend Metrorail along State Road 836 and connect the Doral area with downtown Miami. “When we did that east-west study, the city of Doral didn’t exist.”

A county audit offers the latest reminder that Miami-Dade’s current push to settle on a historic transit plan is a repeat of past efforts. A 2018 audit of Miami-Dade’s transit spending includes a brief passage summarizing past expenditures on the six commuting corridors being studied under the county’s 2016 SMART Plan.

The August report by Miami-Dade’s Department of Audit and Management Services found the county had spent about $80 million on the six SMART corridors through 2011. Despite the pricey studies and design work on transit options, the projects were scratched due to a lack of money from Washington, Tallahassee and local tax coffers.

“These projects are now being reconsidered under the SMART Plan, and new studies are being conducted because the previous ones are outdated,” the audit stated.

The audit doesn’t specify the source of the funds. Florida conducted some of the past transit studies.

Bravo says all was not lost with the old studies, since some of the research and design work can still be relevant. But consultants are earning millions to analyze transit corridors that have been studied for decades, making this the latest attempt to turn research into construction.

In 2016, Miami-Dade launched the Strategic Miami Area Rapid Transit effort, known as the SMART Plan. The process involves Miami-Dade and Florida’s Transportation Department hiring consultants to study transit options for six commuting corridors.

Supporters note that Washington requires updated analyses to consider projects for federal grants, which can cover half the cost. Skeptics have used past efforts to question hiring more consultants to probe the same questions. Miami-Dade expects to spend about $24 million on the consultants who will make recommendations on the best transit plan for each of the three routes assigned to the county, transportation spokeswoman Karla Damian said Thursday.

“We spent money on studies that are obsolete,” said Commissioner Joe Martinez, who represents parts of Kendall. “Why are we throwing money away?”

The county is nearly three years into the new round of studies, which at the start were projected to cost around $47 million. Miami-Dade and Florida are splitting the costs and duties, with each overseeing consultants for three SMART corridors.

State consultants were assigned SMART routes on Northwest 27th Avenue, in Kendall and along the railroad tracks owned by Brightline.

County leaders have already accepted the recommendation for a $243 million rapid-transit bus system in South Dade, the first SMART corridor to finish its study phase and of three assigned to Miami-Dade. County consultants are still researching options for a route between downtown Miami and South Beach, and a western route along State Road 836. In the 1990s, the beach and western routes were combined into the east-west corridor that was part of Bravo’s assignment in the 1990s.

Price remains as daunting an obstacle for running trains east to west as it was two decades ago, when the cost estimate was roughly $1.5 billion.

Gannett Fleming, a consulting firm helping conduct Miami-Dade’s current study of east-west transit route, hasn’t released official price estimates. At a recent town hall, Gannett Fleming executive Carlos Cejas said a new 11-mile Metrorail extension would cost “1.5 billion, plus.”

The other leading option, rapid-transit buses running on the 836 shoulders, would cost about $150 million, he said.

The price estimates revealed at the Jan. 29 meeting had attendees divided on whether a rail option was worth studying. “That’s 10 times” more expensive, said resident Nelson Sanchez. “Why would we even consider a train?”

Vijay Varki countered that considering the “bus-rapid transit” option (often called “BRT”) would amount to surrender for Miami-Dade’s transit ambitions. “Can you imagine if New York City was built on BRT,” he said. “Heavy rail is an investment in the future.”

High costs dashed the last effort to bring rail west in Miami-Dade. In 1999, Miami-Dade voters rejected a one-percent sales tax for transit projects, dashing financial hopes for the east-west rail line. In 2002, voters approved a half-percent tax for transportation, but the county has not expanded Metrorail beyond a 2 1/2-mile link to Miami International Airport.

With a history of failed big-ticket transit plans behind them, Miami-Dade’s elected leaders have so far declined to rally around expensive rail options. The audit showed most of the $80 million spent on past studies went to prep work for a Metrorail extension up 27th Avenue. After spending more than $50 million on studies, engineering and design on the would-be project, Miami-Dade abandoned it for a lack of federal funds during the recession.

This time, state consultants recommended spending more than $1 billion on a Metrorail route up 27th Avenue. The transportation board in December endorsed an elevated transit line there but put off a final decision until consultants came back with financial options and details.

The decision followed the August vote for the bus option in South Dade after Mayor Carlos Gimenez warned the county couldn’t afford the $1 billion price tag for a southern Metrorail route and still expand transit elsewhere.

“When you do these studies, the financial feasibility of them are really important,” Bravo said. “That’s how you make sure you’re able to move to the next step. Which is implementation.”

This story was originally published February 22, 2019 at 8:12 AM.