Urban Public Transportation System in Miami-Dade County and Its Operations and Use by People

摘要

Miami-Dade County is an urbanized area comprising over two million residents. It is the fourth most congested metropolitan area in the United States. Thus, there is no doubt that an efficient transit system is critical to the area's economic prosperity. Nevertheless, inadequate funding for transit and the lack of a dedicated source of funding at the local level are beginning to take a toll. This paper briefly describes the existing transit system and planned expansions. The Miami-Dade Transit Agency (MDTA) is one of the largest departments within Miami-Dade County government. It is responsible for the planning and provision of all public transit services in the Greater Miami metropolitan area. MDTA's integrated transportation system carries over 50% of the transit passengers in the entire state of Florida and consists of four major components: the Metrobus fleet, with some routes running almost 22 hours per day, connecting most areas of Dade County; Metrorail, an electrically powered, elevated rapid transit system stretching 33.6 km (21 mi.) from Dadeland to Hialeah; Metromover, a 7.04 km (4.4 mi.) elevated and automatic people-mover system that serves the downtown central business district of Miami, including the Omni and Brickell areas; and Paratransit Services, designed to meet the needs of the disabled rider who cannot use regular transit services. Annually, MDTA carries over 80,000,000 passenger boardings on the three conventional transit services.