That’s right Miami, we are doing it again. The Transit Miami Summer Transit Challenge is back and we are looking for participants. This Thursday I along with several coworkers will go car-free to experience Miami-Dade Transit at its finest. We will be commuting from our homes (Coral Gables, Miami Beach, and West Kendall) to our Doral offices solely using public transportation. We will be documenting the whole trip (Twitter, hopefully) and discussing the difficulties we encountered along the way.We want to hear from you too. We invite our readers to participate and send us their stories and images. All feedback will be transmitted over to MDT.
To make our commute even more challenging, we have imposed a 9 AM arrival time as our deadline, at which point we will convene to discuss the problems we each encountered.
To plan your commute we recommend Google Transit…
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I purchased a new bike to commute to work. This will be my first bike since elementary school and thanks to your blog I should be able to give up the car for the most part.
Great to hear it Edwin. Bikes are included in our transit Challenge, however, for our first trial we decided it would be better to opt not to use them…
I’m in for sure!
We should all share twitter info.
Scroll over my name for my twitter profile.
If you guys give me more info, I could make an event listing for this on Facebook and MySpace.
Unfortunately, I don’t have class on Thursday, but every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I do use public transportation to get Downtown to the Wolfson campus.
The MetroRail is fine, there’s just overcrowding. The only things I would suggest is better maintenance- clean those things up a bit! That and add security. There’s a lot of homeless people on the Rail and on the Mover who basically sleep or harass others, and they kind of stink up the place. I would imagine that for those who aren’t used to it, it makes Miami unattractive.
Furthermore, they should enforce the fares more. I have a discount card, but I still pay money every time I use the rail, and it pretty much sucks to see people waltzing through the disabled door and getting a free ride. The seventy-five cents I pay each way may not seem like much, but it adds you and you eventually get nickel-and-dimed to death.
I’m in! I’m taking transit from Deerfield Beach to FIU using Tri-Rail and Metrobus!
Gabriel: A warning about Google Transit. It’s a huge improvement over the South Florida Trip Planner, but it’s far from perfect. When we try to map a hypothetical route from my office at The Herald to the county government building, it spits back several bus routes and the Metromover. It can’t differentiate between the free ‘Mover and the fare-charging bus routes, which would make a difference for some consumers. I’m sure it has something to do with the inability to meet a specific schedule for the ‘Mover, while several bus routes leave the Omni terminal at a specific time.
Just a warning. When using Google Transit, check the optional routes.
Thanks for the Heads Up Larry. Yeah I noticed a few issues when using it too, most notably the absence of the Doral Trolley Routes.
Glad to see such an enthusiastic response, we look forward to hearing your stories…
FYI: It doesn’t include the Coral Gables trolley either.
I figured.
I just got a good taste of what I’ll likely experience tomorrow, nearly being run over by an impatient pickup truck driver who simply could not wait for me to finish crossing the street…
We need to begin a Pedestrianization Campaign…
Interesting that you are doing Doral too, that has to be the absolute #1 least walking or transit friendly neighborhood in all of Miami-Dade.
As as aside, why is it that MD is on one hand trying to promote transit use while on the hand continuing to move more and more of its offices to Doral (Elections, the new 311 Call Center, and the new IT building being just a few of the new Doral additions)?
Dave,
Good Question. We were actually just discussing that today at work. Although I don’t have any solid answers, I’ll be working on that topic soon for the website…
I acutually did this part of last week and this week and so far so good. Except fo an elderly member of family, I do not know anybody in Miami who rides the bus.
I’ve learned a few things like the bus routes actually have more stops that our displayed in the brochure. Many bus stations don’t have a covered area so take a hat and water. Talk to bus “connoiseurs; they are full of information and know a lot about the most efficient way of getting somewhere than the actual Miami-Dade Transit employees.
@Gabriel Lopez-Bernal Re: Pedestrianization Campaign…
Maybe you can help the Eye on Miami crew with the PAC and have Transit as a thing for the PAC?
http://eyeonmiami.blogspot.com/2008/07/still-in-shitty-mood-over-countys.html
Speaking of pededtrians, Robert Novak just hit one with his corvette.
I’m going to be extra cautious in my walking, today
Just started riding from my home in Kendall back to my teaching job at Booker T. Washington. Was a little anxious at first about the commute as many homeless and druggies are around the station, but felt very comfortable with one exception. Although there is a seated guard at the Culmer station in the afternoon I saw no security on the platform. I guess they cannot afford to have them in both places.
On another note, I wonder how the park and ride at 133 and Killian (Miami Dade) will affect commuters. Transit suggests parking at Hammocks, but who wants to drive way WEST to get EAST?
Correction: I meant 113, not 133.
Also tried the google trip planner this morning and it has many flaws and many missing features of the old trip planner. Did not return correct arrival times-only gave current. Missed metrorail connections and favored longer bus commutes, no fare details. etc. Unfortunately, the Transit has already linked to google from the site. Fortunately, the old planner is still available sftrp.cinrtosfl.com