page_title: Transportation in South Florida
section_title: Politics
hierarchical_section_title: Transportation in South Florida / Politics
caption_attribution_description: English: These stickers were put on many Miami-Dade Transit vehicles signifying the 2002 half-penny sales surtax that allowed new purchases and some expansions. I suppose this could possibly be copyrighted and not freedom of pano due to closeup.
context_page_description: The Greater Miami area, composed of the three counties of Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach, also known collectively as South Florida, is home to a wide variety of public and private transportation systems. These include heavy rail mass transit, commuter rail, automated guideway transit, highways, two major airports and seaports, as well as three county-wide bus networks, which cover the entire urbanized area of South Florida. Census and ridership data show that Miami has the highest public transportation usage of any city in Florida, as about 17% of Miamians use public transportation on a regular basis, compared to about 4% of commuters in the South Florida metropolitan area. The majority of public transportation in Miami is operated by Miami-Dade Transit, which is currently the largest transit system in Florida and was the 14th largest transit system in the United States in 2011.
  South Florida is one of the most densely populated urbanized areas in the United States overall, being bound by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and the South Florida Water Management District and the Everglades to the west, with a fairly strict Urban Development Boundary.
context_section_description: The region, as with the rest of the state, tends to be more fiscally conservative, generally opting for lower taxes and less government spending. Specifically, in the Miami-Dade area there is a significant population of Cuban-American expatriates and people of Cuban descent, who often default to right-wing politics, seeing it as the opposite of liberalism, which is tied to socialism and seen as similar to the communist regime they escaped. Despite being considered the most liberal region in the state, only about of third of South Floridians surveyed felt they were in a liberal area. At the state level, there is little support for public transit infrastructure; for example, most transit-oriented development planning is done at the city or county level, with Miami-Dade County being considered one of the most active local governments in Florida in terms of transportation planning.
  This political nature often leads to more private infrastructure such as roadways. To their credit, Miami-Dade Transit has not been an accountable organization, coming on the brink of shut-down in 2011, when they were audited by the federal government. On the other hand, the many tolled highways in Florida, for example, generate a significant amount of money for the state, whereas like many mass transit systems in the US, systems such as Metrorail and Metromover have always been a significant loss, financially speaking. Even some of the highway toll collection operations in Florida are privatized. Miami-Dade Transit's federal investigation, which included criminal investigation in addition to audits, revealed likely fraud among other wasteful spending; service cuts and a shut down of the AirportLink project nearly resulted. Tri-Rail is considered an exceptional loss; for fiscal year 2010, train revenue was approximately US$10.3 million, while total operating expenses for fiscal year 2010, including depreciation expense, were approximately US$86.9 million. Expenses increased by approximately US$14.9 million or 20.7% when compared to fiscal year 2009. During this time service was cut and an altogether shut down was threatened.
  Political corruption from all parties is not uncommon in the South Florida metropolitan area, which consistently has one the highest crime rates in the nation, coming in first place among the ten largest metropolitan areas for both violent and property crimes in 2011. This leads to a distrust in government; South Florida, particularly Miami, which would likely wax more Democratically, often has lowest voter turnout in the state. Specifically, the public felt deceived when the majority of promises were broken related to the county-wide half penny sales surtax, which was supposed to fund many rapid transit expansions, that was passed in 2002 with about two-thirds of the vote. While many beneficial investments were made as a result of the tax, transit officials candidly admit that the core promise of new Metrorail lines was always an overstatement. It should be noted, however, that the half-penny itself was a trade off from the full penny surtax that would have generated billions of dollars over several decades, which was championed by then-Miami-Dade County Mayor Alex Penelas, but fought successfully by local businessman and community activist Norman Braman.
caption: A half-penny transit sales surtax was approved by a 2-to-1 margin by Miami-Dade County voters in 2002 after a previous full cent surtax lost 2-to-1. in 2000.
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