At the September 14, 2016 City Commission meeting, the discussion of saving the South Beach Local (Item C4F) was referred to the Neighborhood/Community Affairs Committee (NCAC). The issue of the deployment of low-floor vehicles was also discussed at that meeting (Item R9V) and referred to the NCAC to be discussed as part of the same item.

At the September 16, 2016 NCAC meeting, both items were referred to the September 27, 2016 City Commission meeting without a recommendation and for further discussion.

It is important to clarify that the City is not unilaterally cancelling or terminating the local circulator service to the South Beach area. The issue at hand is whether the South Beach circulator route should continue to be operated by Miami-Dade County or operated by City of Miami Beach and the type of vehicle/technology to provide the service. Previous City Commission direction has been to operate the route with a mixture of modified high-floor/kneeling and low-floor trolley vehicles, neither of which is currently in operation on City of Miami Beach trolley routes (see Attachment A for example of a low-floor trolley vehicle).

The South Beach Local service is owned and operated by Miami-Dade County as part of its bus service via an Interlocal Agreement with the City of Miami Beach that dates back to October, 2005. Since the inception of the South Beach Local, the City has been funding a portion (approximately 1/3) of the annual operations and maintenance cost of the service. The service frequently suffers from interruptions, break-downs, and other mechanical issues that affect service, and, as a result, the target headways of 13 minutes during peak hours and 20 minutes during off-peak hours are not being met in a consistent manner and ridership has been consistently decreasing over the past several years, from an all-time high of 6,835 annual average daily passengers in 2007 to an all-time low of 2,957 annual average daily passengers in 2015.

Due to the poor service level, declining ridership, and County statements that they were shifting from providing local circulator service to a focus on regional routes, the Commission began exploring alternatives almost 2 years ago and ultimately recommended replacing the South Beach Local with a South Beach Trolley in January 2016. Further discussion with the County in the last few weeks have identified the following additional information:

• The buses used on the South Beach Local service are among the most unreliable of the fleet subject to frequent breakdowns and repairs. Should the City elect to continue this service and should the County agree, new buses would need to be procured. These buses cost approximately $450,000 per unit or more depending on specifications. Cost of the low-floor trolley vehicles is approximately $305,000 per unit and cost of modified high-floor/kneeling trolley vehicles is approximately $200,000 per unit.

• Due to County shifting from local circulator service to regional routes, the County currently operates only one other circulator service, the Cutler Bay Local. In that instance, the Town of Cutler Bay pays the full cost of operation at approximately $115 per operating hour per vehicle. Should the City elect and County agree, County staff have indicated that probable hourly operating cost of South Beach circulator would be $130.33 inclusive of the purchase of new vehicles. For comparison purposes, hourly operating cost of a low-floor trolley vehicle is $77.35 inclusive of the amortization of the low-floor trolley vehicles. The table below provides a cost comparison between City-operated South Beach Trolley and a County-operated South Beach circulator service.

Further, in the event of Miami-Dade County continuing service, no low-floor vehicles would be deployed outside of South Beach.

Please see attached LTC No. 317-2016 (Attachment B) and LTC No. 347-2016 (Attachment C) for additional background information.


Attachments:
A: Example of Low-Floor Trolley Vehicle
B: LTC No. 317-2016
C: LTC No. 347-2016