Remarks by Christi Fraga
2,372 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 33 of 95
“All right. Questions? I have some. I figured.”
“So if we can go back to the proposed Route 1B, I believe that this is the route that connects Legacy to Central, correct? Correct. So I have a concern about where the hub for Central is. Did we explore at all with the moving of Doral Central Park's main entrance to 92nd?”
“I just think that with what we're planning with the garage and the retail and all that, that hub should be discussed or planned for either 92nd or 33rd. Understanding the 87th is a major throwaway, but I think that you can still have a stop, but I think a hub And more so, I think the people that are going to use that route and the purpose of that route being so utilized is because we're going to see a lot of our older population and the students using the connection between the two parks is extremely important. I think that it merits to discuss it being closer to the entrance, the main…”
“And what is the headway between Legacy and Central? How many stops is there in between?”
“Yeah, like how much time between them getting to, I mean, assuming there's no traffic.”
“It's just as we move forward and adopt a plan, I want to make sure that we're adopting a plan that's meeting the needs of the current request. I mean, I know you guys did a lot of community outreach and workshops and stuff, but sometimes things in theory are not as practical when they're put into practice. And so that's always my concern. So I definitely want to make sure we kind of look at those things. I would like to have those numbers before an adoption of understanding maybe some of the... Reduced headway, hopefully, it creates by splitting that route. I also didn't see here anything.…”
“We discussed this. We discussed that at the workshop. Right. Right.”
“OK. So obviously, this is a very ambitious plan. It requires a lot of capital. Because even though we have 23 vehicles, they're not on service at the same time. Go ahead, Rita.”
“Now, what the required or suggested proposed vehicles here is with a 15 to 20 minute headway at 33 is not that all 33 would be in service at the same time either. How many do you need in service to meet that?”
“On service at all times. On service, yes.”
“OK. Do we have, so I didn't see the numbers here. I'm sure you have it within your studies. The number of ridership, because I know what we're talking about, the new trolleys. I personally like the nostalgic look of the other trolleys. It gives it that small town feel. However, I do. know we have to modernize a bit. I always envisioned as we expanded our routes for them to be more direct, more frequent, connecting shorter distances, that we could look at smaller buses. Not replace particularly our trolleys, leave those for, for example, the FIU route. Some of the more, the routes that cover a…”
“No, we also, even though we have 23 on fleet, we have probably... six, five to six that we need to retire.”
“Completely. That just are, I think we have one from like 2009. Yeah. Yeah. So this is, yeah.”
“I think we need to have a bigger discussion about how we're going to continue to manage our fleet and purchase the capital. And I know that that's a discussion I've had with the manager, and you guys are studying and looking at right now at the feasibility of what that means for us. So I'm going to reserve my comments for a discussion in-house before we take this to having a discussion fully about it, because I think that there needs to be a lot more information. And I think it behooves us to have the discussion because if we want to provide the service that we anticipate and that our…”
“Yeah, there's some other areas there that I don't know that we have that right-of-way.”
“I don't hate the new models, but I'm nostalgic when it comes to the trolleys.”
“I was just going to ask about the gas and the saving. Is there any maintenance and operational savings with the gas?”
“And this enhanced plan has two routes that lead into the metro rail now, right? We only have one right now?”
“And in Route 5, can we go to the new Route 5? Did we really see a need to create a direct, yeah?”
“Yeah. OK. All right. You're not expecting us to adopt this today, right?”
“I'll tell you, I'm not comfortable adopting the plan today without having a discussion about the future of our fleet, personally.”
“Yeah. And it's not my purpose or I'm not asking for this to be put on a shelf and not brought back out in a year where it's outdated. Definitely not. I think that we do need to move forward. But I think by adopting it, we're sending a message of implementation. And it's unrealistic if we don't have a plan for the capital and if we don't have a plan for how we're going to manage. the dated fleet we have. So what I'd like is, if we have the support, is maybe to come back in the next 90 days. I think 180 days is too much. But I think we have holidays. But I think maybe by February, if we can…”
“OK, yes, Councilman Reynoso and then Councilman Pinero.”
“Well, technically, it doesn't take that long to implement. Between the approvals at the county and stuff, we can be implemented in six months, probably less. The difference is we implement without the amount of vehicles. You're going to have 30 to 40 minute headways in between, and then you're going to have people that are not necessarily happy. The other thing that we could look at The other thing that we could possibly look at is in the ridership, and I would have to break down the numbers more than what we saw here today, is that if we can shift, and I know we do this now, right? We have…”
“But they still don't pay for the route. So it's still not going to provide me the funding to be able to make the purchases. So I get what you're saying, but it's a free route. I hear you, and I agree. I would want to implement the split of Route 1 tomorrow because I know it's going to address some of our bigger issues, like connecting Legacy Park to Doral Central Park, which is an issue for our seniors right now. So I hear you 100%. I'm with you on it, which is why I say I don't want this to be put on a shelf and not implemented. My goal is to get this done in the next three months. but we…”