MIAMI FL:Mayor Lobbies to Kill Toll Agency

Hardly two years after the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority (MDX) took control of five toll roads in southern Florida, it is fighting for its very survival. MDX was getting ready to sell bonds and start on major reconstruction of area tollroads this summer (TRnl#33 Nov 98 p1).

Feb 19 the board voted unanimously to take tolls from 25c (the lowest in the country) to 50c to start to generate the revenue needed to service the bonds. Out of the blue they were attacked by the Mayor of Miami, Alex Penelas who got on a great political roll about abolishing tolls and funding area transp improvements with a new one cent sales tax. Previous proposals for such taxes have been defeated at ballot.

The mayor was prompted to propose the new tax by Federal Transit Admin officials who said that they would not consider any federal support for new transit lines in Miami without a dedicated source of local funding.

Penelas seized on the MDX toll increase to flog the toll agency and used the idea of abolishing tolls to provide him political cover for the tax. MDX board members were up in Tallahassee too last week lobbying to save their agency and its plans, but they failed to prevent their loss of authority over tolls.

State Legislature guts MDX authority

As of April 30 Penelas has succeeded in getting the state legislature to pass a bill which grants the Miami-Dade county commissioners power to abolish tolls on MDX toll roads if they identify local revenues to cover MDX debt service and other costs. Supported by both Democrats and Republicans the legislation seems certain to be signed into law by the governor. This law would emasculate the MDX board which hithertoo had control of tolls.

Sonny Holzman MDX chairman said that without power over tolls the authority would be unable to proceed with planned bond sales, so the authority’s ambitious capital program is now on hold. It is unclear whether it will proceed with the 50c toll.

Penelas admits that his proposed sales tax will be a tough sell, and says he will not put the measure to voters “for at least a year.” He seems happy to bask in the political glory of being a warrior against tolls, while leaving the future of the authority and its capital program to hang in the wind.

Vice-chair of the MDX board Norman Wartman blames local infatuation with rail transit for the problem. He says plans for “billions of dollars of rail lines that almost no one will use” have focussed attention on how to get the money out of the federal govt: “We are just a sideshow in a much bigger battle over local taxes and spending.”

Miami has some of the nation’s least used rail transit lines, but local politicians want to spend another $12b on new rails to $3b on highways as part of a 15-year regional transp plan.

MDX took over the five toll roads from the Florida DOT after years of almost complete neglect by the state agency in 1996. The 50km (31mi) of toll roads are among the most heavily trafficked in the metro area but have had little work done on them since they were first built in the 1960s and 70s. Toll evasion is rife and toll revenues have barely been sufficient to pay collectors’ wages, let alone provide any return on capital. MDX floated $90m of bonds to pay FDOT for the roads, which if properly managed could yield 9-digit revenues.

Like the Mayor’s demagoguery against tolls and his assault on the toll authority, the Florida legislature’s latest law is a deplorable exercise in political irresponsibility and pandering. The new law says tolls may be abolished by the county commissioners if the county produces a source of revenue to cover MDX expenses including its debt. But what expenses and what debt? MDX’s current debt service is about $5m on $90m bonds, but MDX has a $2.7 billion capital program to rebuild and expand area toll roads, which would see its debt service costs rise eventually to over $200m/yr.

The legislature has not touched the formal powers of the MDX, under which it still has full authority to set tolls and otherwise do business. It apparently hasn’t occurred to these politicians to ask what’s the point of a toll authority without tolls. Or who would run the roads without tolls. Or what is supposed to happen to the program for improvements. So the scene is ripe for political warfare and litigation over who’s in charge. The one certain thing is that improving the roads in Miami will be delayed.

Norman Wartman says antagonism to tolls is based mainly on the terrible lines at the toll plazas: “People get much more upset about how hard it is to get to the toll booth to pay your toll, than about the toll itself. The shame is: if we’d had electronic tolling a year ago we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

And just last month they started electronic tolling down there – to collect those quarters. (Contact Sarah Crowell MDX 305 637 3277x11)