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By Amrita Jayakumar. Miami Herlad
July 21, 2011
To George Llerena, the deal seemed too good to be true: his dream car for a dream price. Suffice it to say that it was too good to be true. His 2004 red Mustang was repossessed after he fell victim to a scammer on Craigslist. Thankfully, the scammer was arrested, but Llerena still lost $3,000 and the car. A resident of South Florida for 24 years, he isn’t cruising down the road the way he imagined. But he’s seeing a whole new side of the city.
Llerena, of Hollywood, started taking the Tri-Rail to Miami, where he works. He is one of approximately 85,000 people who use public transportation to get to work in Miami-Dade and Broward, according to the five-year American Community Survey. Some take it out of necessity, like Llerena, who is once bitten, twice shy. Others take it to save money on rising gas prices or save themselves from the frustration of rush-hour traffic.
From 1995 to 2009, national use of public transit increased by 34 percent, according to a report by the American Public Transportation Association, a nonpartisan group that promotes mass-transit improvement. South Florida saw an increase of 37 percent from 2000 to 2009. In the state with the highest rate of pedestrian fatalities, venturing out of a car is especially risky. Miami residents’ commute time is also five minutes longer than the national average. But in the city that was recently ranked the eighth-most “walkable” in the country, people are willing to do it.
“I’ve been driving for the last 12 years,” said Llerena, whose last contact with mass transit was riding the New York subway in the 1970s. “I never thought I was going to ride a train everyday.”
The Tri-Rail takes him to and from the city, but he hitches a ride with friends to get to the station. Llerena said he would need to start taking the bus or paying for gas to avoid being a burden on them.
‘It’s comfortable’
The Tri-Rail system has its fair share of problems. It doesn’t always stick to schedule (it was 10 minutes late the day this reporter took it) and sometimes switches tracks at stations. It also runs only once an hour, so missing the train is not an option. But Llerena said he was warming up to it.
“It’s comfortable, has air conditioning and it’s convenient,” he said.
Two years ago, Tri-Rail nearly shut down for good after the recession, but was rescued by state funds. It recently added 10 locomotives and 14 trailer cars to its inventory and will start rolling them out during the next two years.
Vanessa Petro, a nurse who travels from Fort Lauderdale to Miami’s Veterans Administration hospital, started taking the train two months ago to save money on gas. A trip that used to take 35 minutes now takes her at least an hour.
Petro doesn’t have immediate plans to start driving again. “If the gas prices go down to $2, then maybe,” she said. Riding the train, which costs her around $100 a month, is cheaper, she said.
Miami public-transit users save an average of $10,000 annually, APTA reported in May. The figure was calculated based on gas and parking prices against the cost of monthly transit passes.
From the Palmetto station to Dadeland, a single Metrorail ride takes a maximum of 55 minutes and costs two dollars. The Tri-Rail reaches Fort Lauderdale from Miami in just more than half an hour, and has a range of fares with a maximum of $12. Rides are sometimes free in order to promote awareness about public transport, said Natalie Levy, Tri-Rail station ambassador for Miami-Dade.
This year’s national “Dump the Pump Day” was held on June 16 and recorded nearly 20,000 trips, the highest number in Tri-Rail’s 22-year history, according to a report by the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority. Dump the Pump Day, started by the APTA six years ago, encourages people to give up driving for a day and use public transport instead.
“Across the country, people are responding to gas prices,” said Bonnie Arnold, spokesperson for the SFRTA. “Once they experience the commute, they realize how easy it is and more stress-free than getting on I-95 everyday.”
Metrorail matters
In Little Haiti, Stephanie Brown’s embrace of public transport comes at a price. Brown catches the No. 9 bus every morning. In half an hour, she reaches the Government Center station. Another 30-minute Metrorail ride later, she arrives at Northside station on Northwest 79th Street. Then she waits for the No. 32 bus to take her to work at Northwest 157th Street. The journey lasts one-and-a-half to two hours, depending on traffic. She does it all over again in the evening. Brown, 25, hasn’t learned how to drive yet, but said she plans to.
A single mother to her 6-year-old son D’Shawn, she said that traveling by public transport helped her save money, but the time and effort involved was frustrating. “Sometimes I get a ride to the Metrorail station, so it’s a little better,” said Brown, who explained she would have to take three buses and endure longer waits to avoid going south to downtown and then north again.
Miami-Dade Transit recently received a much-needed loan from county commissioners to continue construction of an elevated link between the airport and the Earlington Heights station.
For Lee Casey and Julian Martinez, the Metrorail is a matter of preference. Casey travels daily from West Kendall to his office at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. station while Martinez rides from Hialeah to Dadeland North. Both own cars, but use the train to avoid traffic. Their workplaces are walking distance from the station.
“The WiFi isn’t bad,” said Casey.
There’s no denying that in Miami, as in the rest of the country, the car is still king. But to thousands of Miamians, public transport is equally invaluable.
Original article from the Miami Herald.
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