December 2023

County seeks monster train bridge

Downtown future at stake as bridge-tunnel debate

comes to head regarding New River Crossing

Let us take a moment and reflect on the recent debate about commuter rail in South Florida.

Even with the repeated widening of Interstate 95, congestion is a daily struggle. The belief is that people will abandon driving in favor of a frequent rail option.

This theory has yet to be proven. Our cities were designed for vehicular travel, not mass transit. And let’s face it, most of us are married to our cars. Just look at the county’s buses. How often do you see more than a few people inside?

Yet some are always keen on social engineering. While these experiments are never cheap, many cities along the proposed route are clamoring for the new service as a way to create economic growth and affordable housing.

But let’s look at our city, Fort Lauderdale.

In our downtown, we have already experienced unprecedented economic development and have led the county in building affordable housing.

The big issue for Fort Lauderdale regarding commuter rail is how can we accommodate 80 or 100 more trains per day without a severe impact. On the New River, we must think of the marine industry that is our lifeblood. And then, what about street-level delays for drivers as all these trains cross Sunrise, Broward and David boulevards?

We have now reached a critical moment in the decision-making process of how this commuter rail service should cross the New River and run through downtown.  

We are approaching a new round of federal infrastructure funding next spring that can help pay for construction. The city has been working as fast as possible with a team of internationally renowned experts to explore options to tunnel under the river and avoid the monstrosity of a bridge cutting through our community.

The Florida Department of Transportation previously studied one tunnel option and three different bridge heights and costed those out. Only the tallest of the bridges suited the marine industry because of its needs for boat traffic to travel largely unimpeded. Those bridges ranged up to eight stories high and extended for almost two miles.

Unfortunately, the Broward County Commission has announced that it plans to pursue construction of a bridge at least 40 feet high. They won’t even give the city a couple additional months so we can complete our ongoing analysis of the best tunnel designs and how much they would cost.

The county accepted a limited consulting report that was packed with misinformation and based on outdated and incomplete assessments. In its opinion, a tall, long bridge is the only way to go.

This is total nonsense.

This is a monumental decision that will shape the future of downtown for decades to come. It is one that should not be made without all the facts and certainly not without a complete and thorough exploration of all options.

The county’s obsession with a bridge approach blinds it from the clear impacts to our city that demand consideration. These include the impact on economic development, the marine industry, vehicular traffic flow and individual neighborhoods.

Then, there are quality-of-life aspects like noise and aesthetics. Also, a bridge would permanently divide parts of the city from each other, violating a principal transportation planning tenet of the Biden administration.

All of these factors have a value beyond a strict price tag comparison between a tunnel and bridge.

Even the U.S. Department of Transportation understands the seriousness of the matter and what is at stake. They awarded Fort Lauderdale a $1 million grant this fall to undertake critical and necessary reviews. It is this effort that the county now seeks to short circuit.

The decision before us should not – and cannot – come at the expense of Fort Lauderdale and its residents and businesses. 

Key Fort Lauderdale neighborhood associations and business leaders have long agreed with us in this regard and have favored a tunnel. They include the Broward Workshop, the Downtown Development Authority, the Greater Fort Lauderdale Chamber of Commerce and the Downtown Civic Association.

Before we permanently mar and divide downtown with a bridge, we owe it to future generations to do our utmost to determine the viability of a tunnel.

Consider how far we’ve come through the efforts of the city.

We have already convinced the Florida Department of Transportation that a tunnel could be built for half as much as they initially believed. When the county continued to recite outdated mantras about financing a river crossing, we discovered new pots of federal assistance created through President Biden’s infrastructure initiative and found willing partners in the U.S. government to assist us.

We have brought together for the first time high-level representatives of Brightline, Florida East Coast Railroad Industries and their parent company Fortress to work with our experts on how to build a tunnel at a reasonable price.

These are remarkable developments. Our efforts are just beginning to bear fruit.

Just how troublesome is the report that the county is relying on to dismiss further discussion of a tunnel? Consider these details…

• FDOT already included a 25 percent markup in its tunnel estimate for cost overruns. The county’s favored consultant inflated the numbers with an additional 40 percent contingency.

• FDOT estimated the annual operating and maintenance costs for a tunnel at $8 million a year. The county’s favored consultants say the annual cost is $25 million! Which is ridiculous on its face, especially when the tunnel in Miami operates at less than $10 million per year. Moreover, the county’s analysis fails to consider engineering analyses that say the lifespan of a tunnel is twice as long as a bridge. A bridge must be replaced in 50 to 75 years while a tunnel would last 125 to 150 years.

• The county’s favored consultants say a tunnel has very limited federal grant options. That’s not what Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg or his team told the city, nor what Biden infrastructure adviser Mitch Landrieu publicly stated. In fact, after visiting Fort Lauderdale, Landrieu said the federal government is unlikely to finance a bridge – because of the community impacts.

• The county myopically has looked at only one tunnel configuration even though they come up with new bridge options at a dizzying speed. They also add extra cost to the tunneling plans by including a massive new underground station.

• The county seeks to downplay the potential number of trains to boost the case for above-ground option. The county states that the city is being alarmist. Sorry, but we stand behind our data. Once commuter rail is fully operational, a combined total of almost 200 trains could pass through downtown each day. That is a train every 8 minutes.

• The county also quotes the Florida East Coast Railroad freight line as saying a tunnel is unsuitable for them. What the county leaves out is that the company also says that it won’t use a new bridge either.

This is a rush to judgment. The county has conducted the most rudimentary analysis of this new idea of a 40-foot bridge. They need a full-scale review of it before a decision is made – just like FDOT did of its earlier proposals. 

The public needs to know where the bridge would start on the northern and southern ends. Would it stretch as far as Davie and Sunrise boulevards? We don’t know.

We also need to know the cost. We need to know how the bridge would be designed to cross the river. We need to know what property would be purchased. We need to know what roads would be closed. That might mean no more access to Himmarshee Street or 7th Street at Andrews Ave.

We need to see renderings and maps. For instance, what will the city’s prized historic district look like? It would live in the shadow and noise of a bridge. Imagine a retaining wall mere feet from these historic buildings or piers supporting a viaduct cantilevering overhead.

Instead of doing the legwork that a responsible government would undertake, the county and their favored consultant give us half-cooked ideas.

Maybe, they say, the new bridge should be built west of the existing bridge as FDOT proposed. Their other idea is to have a set of THREE bridges – building a single-line bridge to the east of the existing bridge and another single-line bridge to the west.

VisitLauderdale could advertise it as Fort Lauderdale’s Three Bridges Crossing.

Why did the county suddenly choose 40 feet for the height of the bridge? It’s because the Marine Industry Association of South Florida has stated a bridge lower than 40 feet would financially harm boatyards upriver.

But what the county fails to say is that owners of some of those boatyards disagree with their trade group’s position.

Those owners believe a bridge must be at least 50 feet high so their largest clients can reach them unimpeded. They believe anything lower will lead customers to take their business elsewhere – maybe Fort Pierce, maybe Savannah.

The impact to the marine industry is a primary reason why the best solution is a tunnel. Fort Lauderdale is the yachting capital of the world, and we should not risk its devastation with a bridge. 

The county also must look at the impact a bridge has on surrounding property. Land acquisition needs have not been analyzed since FDOT is 2020. A lot has changed.

Unless the county were to actually pursue the three-bridge option, the new bridge must be built to the west of the existing bridge. That’s because the FEC freight line will not allow the existing bridge to be moved.

To build a bridge in that location would require the county to purchase 30 feet of additional right-of-way along the length of the bridge and its approaches.

Since no one has studied a 40-foot-tall bridge, we don’t know how much property is needed.

However, we do know this from FDOT's early reviews. Any bridge requires major acquisition between Broward Boulevard and Southwest 6^th Street at the very least. This would impact not only the historic district but also an area undergoing rapid redevelopment that includes the Marina Lofts, Nautica and River Lofts projects.

The FDOT land acquisition study was done when the area south of the river had not begun to redevelop. What they assessed as an aging marina is now a component of the $1.5 billion Nautica project. How much will that cost the county to purchase?

The county may have to seize such property through eminent domain involving years of court fights. That’s exactly what happened when the county expanded the international airport in the mid-1990s. They spent enormous amounts of money on legal fees, property experts and acquisition costs.

The county’s consultant even understands that.

“The new bascule bridge and approach spans would have to be constructed so far west of the existing bridge that the resulting impacts to the adjacent marina business and public facilities (Riverwalk, historic district) would be extensive and probably controversial,” they wrote in their report. 

I urge concerned residents and businesses to once again rally together on this.

The City Commission will discuss the New River crossing and commuter rail during its 1:30 p.m. conference meeting on Dec. 19 and then consider sending a new resolution with our stance to the county during our 6 p.m. meeting. The meetings will be held in the Mary Porter Riverview Ballroom at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts.

We do not seek much. We want only a couple months for our expert team led by the international BDO consulting firm to finish its work.

The county has been faithless partners with the city for a while now – far beyond this debate. They need to be pushed hard by the public if we are to obtain the time we seek.

It was their domineering attitude that caused the collapse of a joint county-city government center project. This same overlord approach has resulted in Fort Lauderdale receiving only pittance of transportation surtax funds and has left us on our own to figure out how best to solve a homeless problem that really requires a regional solution.

It’s mystifying that the county has conducted no community outreach about their New River crossing plans.

They need to hold their own public hearings so the public can speak directly to them about this matter. These need to be real public meetings held when residents can attend.

Ultimately, if there is not consensus, this project is doomed to fail.

The Biden administration and Congress are not going to help pay for a project that is subject to deep community divisions. How can there be consensus when essential studies have yet to be completed and discussed in community meetings? How can there be consensus when there is so little information about the county’s planned direction?

Fort Lauderdale deserves better. Broward County deserves better. And, my friends, you deserve better.

Yours,

Dean