Miami-Dade cuts Metrorail service, blames hiring troubles for service reductions
Metrorail trains will leave stations less frequently starting Aug. 8 under cutbacks transit administrators blame on staffing shortages.
Announced Friday afternoon, the cuts follow service reductions in the county’s bus service in June and reflect a nationwide shortage in transit operators, mechanics and support staff.
The Miami-Dade announcement is the latest blow to Mayor Daniella Levine Cava’s effort to expand transit service since taking office in 2020. She had planned to implement a major redesign of the county’s bus routes this summer. Instead, the “Better Bus Network” plan has been delayed multiple times, and now is budgeted to begin in the second half of 2023.
In October, she announced resumption of the county’s Orange Line, a secondary set of trains that run the 19 miles between Dadeland South and Miami International Airport, duplicating stops by the mainstay Green Line trains. Orange Line service was reduced in 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and will be reduced again in the latest cuts.
Miami-Dade’s Department of Transportation and Public Works, which runs the county’s transit systems, hasn’t said how many vacancies it has now.
The Better Bus delays were blamed on not being able to fill the 400 operator slots needed to launch expanded service. Jeffery Mitchell, president of the Transportation Workers Union Local 291 chapter, said Friday the rail division has 70 vacancies in its maintenance division alone.
Starting pay for operators is about $19 an hour, and Miami-Dade is offering $5,000 signing bonuses for new transit hires.
The reductions announced Friday are:
▪ Orange Line trains will continue leaving from Dadeland South during the week, but less frequently. Orange and Green trains will leave every 15 minutes on average, instead of the current frequency of about 10 minutes during peak hours. That means average waits moving from about five minutes to eight minutes.
▪ Evening hours for Metrorail will begin at 8 p.m., instead of 8:30 p.m. Trains will leave every 30 minutes.
▪ Direct Metrorail runs to MIA won’t be available on weekends anywhere but at the Earlington Heights station. Metrorail will return the Orange Line to the short MIA-to-Earlington route on weekends, leaving the Green Line trains servicing stations south of Earlington. Riders heading to MIA will have to transfer at Earlington to catch an Orange Line train to the airport.
“Like employers and municipalities across the county and nation, we are experiencing staff shortages at some positions that are critical to continue to provide safe and reliable public transit service to our community,” Eulois Cleckley, director of Transportation and Public Works, said in a statement.
This story was originally published July 22, 2022 at 6:28 PM.