Commuters concerned about shortage of parking spaces in Metrorail garages

MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – Ridership on the Miami-Dade County Metrorail system is up, but the parking lots are the same size they were when they were first built in the 1980s.

This has caused frustration amongst commuters, who say they need more spaces to park.

Margo Siewert reached out to Call Christina, concerned about the lack of Metrorail parking at Dadeland North and South garages.

Siewert said that since mid-January, Dadeland North, the garage adjacent to the Metrorail has been completely full by 8:30 AM.

"So my day begins at about 7:15 when I'm dropping off my son at school down in Homestead," Siewert said. "By the time I am here at 8:30, I circle all the way up to the 11th floor and it is completely filled."

According to Siewert, the increase in ridership stems from the Brickell area now being the second biggest financial district in the country.

"They are constantly promoting bringing in new business and Miami is doing the same thing," Siewert said. "If we don't have the infrastructure to support that, we have to do it today. We are already too late."

"For the first time ever we are seeing people actually utilize the Metrorail. The ridership even in the eight years that I've been riding, it has increased dramatically. I would say it's even doubled," Siewert said.

Some of the commuters who spoke with Local 10 News from areas like Palmetto Bay, Pinecrest, Cutler Ridge, and Homestead said they only recently began utilizing public transit to avoid the ever increasing bumper-to-bumper traffic along US-1.

In the first five months of 2015, Metrorail ridership has increased at a pace of 2 percent over last fiscal yea,r with an average weekday boarding of 76,300 people.  Over the past five years, total annual rail ridership has increased by 24 percent and average weekday ridership by 22 percent.

"We've grown up as a community right, we've grown up as an urbanized area and so one of the things is that there's some growing pains associated with it," Miami-Dade County Transit Director Ysela Llort said, "The people who have chosen transit have made a really great choice not only for themselves but for the other people in the community."

Miami-Dade Transit said every 72 hours the riders of the Miami-Dade County transit system pay about $1 million in fares. On a daily basis, the system costs about $1.5 million to operate.

"To make that clear, the fares that are collected in the rail system only pay for about 28 percent of that service. It's highly subsidized but it's a great public service," Llort said.

Commuters believe their money should go to a new parking garage, but Metrorail official said the money is used to operate the Metrorail.

Llort said she has been in contact with people who own land in the Dadeland area to see if they can build roughly 100-200 more parking spaces. However, she still urges users to think of alternatives.

"We don't have, in our program, a bigger garage at the Dadeland area, but we do have a series of park and rides along bus lines. We urge people to look at the alternatives, or to even use a different station," Llort said. "This would save money and aggravation."

Albert Hernandez, assistant director for engineering, planning and development, said his team is currently working on creating an app to help commuters know how many parking spots are available at a parking garage before they get there.

"A rider will be able to go on to his app by his iPhone or Samsung device and know the available parking spots in each of the garages," Hernandez said. "Not only through the app, there will be an electronic sign in front of the garage that will also display this information."

According to Hernandez, the technology will not be able to tell you exactly which spaces are available due to the cost. However, there are sensors at the entrance that will tell you the availability at the floor level but not at the space level.

"We are advertising for construction this summer," Hernandez said. "It's going to take about a year to have that in service so we think that by summer of 2016 that technology will be available."

Miami-Dade Transit said they do not plan to build another parking garage, an answer Siewert finds insufficient. Siewert also does not think the bus alternative will be helpful.

"There only certain routes of buses that will accommodate that," Siewert said. "Living in Homestead, I am about four miles away from the nearest bus parking facility. I would have to go four miles west as opposed to just hopping on the Turnpike and going north, making my way to Dadeland."

Siewert said, "The problem exists today. This will only continue to get worse and they need to be thinking forward now."

Dadeland South Station

Dadeland North Station

South Miami Station

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