The signage at the stations and inside the train cars is now almost fully converted.
Airport link is coming . . .
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I’m excited for the Orange Line, but I hate how MDT never has cohesive marketing and signage. I’ve seen multiple different “official” Metrorail maps and they’re all different. The same can be said about all the different Metromover maps. MDT needs to get its logos, maps and marketing on board.
Can MDT please decide on a map, make it easy to read, and stick to it? Let’s try and create a solid brand here that’s going to get Miamians onto the Metro. Every other city can do it, so can we.
MDT definitely doesn’t know how to do marketing… totally confusing is all the different bus services they have, like:
- regular numbered buses
- locals
- MAXs
- circulators
- connections
- the 95 Express
- shuttles
- limiteds
- the Kendall Cruiser
- Midnight Owl
- flyers
Signage, maps branding, it’s all a big mess and keeps getting worse over time. Things really went downhill when the green and blue “M” was banished and replaced with the county logo which is really irrelevant to transit service.
Finally! At least we are getting something for our 1/2 penny sales tax. Yeah, the sign is confusing, but that can be changed with minimal hassel. Let’s just “get her done”.
The airport link, by rocketing the amount of tourists who use it, will really put in the spotlight its beach related shortcomings, and that’s a good thing. It may start a big push for some kind of baylink. And this time it will be the economy talking (tourists), not just whiny locals, which can only help its odds.
btw this is already a month behind schedule, however the april 31 date was never set in stone, just the goal.
I’ve been thinking about this for a while: does anyone know why they decided to put the separate line between the airport and the MIC rather than taking the Metrorail directly into the airport with a stop at the MIC? Was it just cost? Seems like having to change trains to go from the airport to get to Metrorail is somewhat inconvenient, especially if another line transfer will eventually needed to get to the Port or Sobe.
When this line opens, it will be a great day for transit here in Miami.
They said the cost was excessive and instead chose to spend *only* $200 million on the silly tram. So close yet so far away.
The mover was necessary to have a shuttle-type service every few minutes 24/7 between the airport and the MIC… having only the Metrorail running every 15-30 minutes for most of the day and closed overnight would have been more inconvenient to get from the terminal to the MIC.
Watch this video of what the county is planning for the east side of the MIC… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NXJa2kuIx4 It could be a great destination if anything like that gets built.
That doesn’t make any sense. People have to wait at the train station to get to the shuttle in the first place. It actually lengthens the trip to the airport (which could be direct). The only beneficiaries of the crappy shuttle are the schleps who have to use the parking garage.
If what is in the video never gets built we will all be lucky. It looks like a glorified office park. Creating good urbanism is not that difficult guys, and what is in this video does not even resemble good urbanism.
Oh, but i forgot - we are in Miami.
At least they had bike lanes in the video.
Bike lanes are not a once-size-fits-all solution. In an urban context (or when trying to create an urban context), we don’t push bike lanes as much as other treatments because it leads to extra wide streets that are not traffic calmed. Bike lanes are more appropriate for suburban conditions where you can start to take back street space from the car. But if you are starting from scratch (as in the case of this plan) you can design more urban bicycle facilities that do not lead to overly wide streets.
IMO, the Metrorail signage is fine, it’s the Metromover that is confusing. Perhaps we should have a contest to design metromover signage and send it to MDT to consider?
A huge improvement is going to be the flexibility to have trains more frequent along the “busy” part of the line from Dadeland to Civic Center. At least initially, the plan is to double the frequency where the green/orange lines intersect. I just hope they don’t cut the schedule back to 10-15 minutes next year, and have the airport service be a “shuttle” between Eerlington Heights and the MIC…
The new Metrorail signage is not great but not terrible either so maybe that’s progress… the Metrover is a mess the maps at stations are unreadable and outdated and the ones inside the cars are too small and confusing. I wish the money spent running the Miami trolley (which duplicates exactly the mover route) was used to properly maintain and improve the mover cars and stations.
As for that video, it may superficially look like an office park but it seems to illustrate an urbane and pedestrian and transit-friendly area. Just contrast that with a real office park like Blue Lagoon and you can see the difference.
In regards to the MIA Mover- the Mover was necessary to connect between the airport and Central Station. Let’s not forget that the Central Station is not just Metrorail, it’s also Amtrak, Tri-Rail, Metrobus and the Car Rental Center. Without it, we would need bus shuttles between the station and the airport, and the purpose of the plan was to reduce traffic at the airport and trains are more efficient. MIA Mover was necessary and they did a good job with it.
No John - not correct at all. Anyone coming in on Amtrak or Tri-rail would have just been able to transfer to the Metrorail (the way they will have to transfer to the shuttle. The shuttle was a completely unnecessary extra leg. Having Metrorail go directly to the airport would have saved money and made for a better connection to the airport. The only ones that are better served by the shuttle are the folks who park in the huge parking garage.
Henry Flagler- Yes, but the Mover is free and comes every couple minutes. The Metrorail costs $2 and service is more infrequent. You’d have to have a Metro station at the airport and one at the Central Station so that someone coming in on Amtrak can get on a Metro train at the Central Station to take it across LeJeune just to get to the airport. It doesn’t make sense.
It’s not just Metro riders coming in to the airport, so the MIA Mover makes sense for everyone.
Well this I started this, I should comment that what I was thinking of was Metrorail running directly into the airport with a stop at the MIC. Then, additional Metrorail cars could have run between the airport and the MIC for increased frequency. (Same cars, same track.)
Regardless I’m happy with it, even though I have no reason to use the new line.
The grand opening is set for July 28th.