Richard Clark, executive director of Monroe County Transit, joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s been going on with travel in the county.
How long will the Seven Mile Bridget project actually take?
Clark said, “That’s a decade plus away. I haven’t asked the question of FDOT everybody asks, how much time are we talking about once we even start construction? I think once we see Long Key Bridge start, like the actual construction start, we’ll start being able to see everything else line up and my assumption is, logically, they would finish that bridge before they start the Seven Mile. Those are multi year projects.”
The Freebee service in the Upper Keys and Conch Connect specifically in Lower Keys are both doing quite well and the Conch Connect, in particular, reached some milestones and goals relatively early.
Clark said, “It really has. It’s rare that people do what they say. We went around for the first year just listening, what do you want to see? What are we missing? What would you want to ride? That’s how Conch Connect was born, just listening to people that live here and like, what are we missing? Then we did it, and they actually rode it, which, it’s really nice to see people’s commitment to the community here. They don’t want to drive or fight for parking any more than the next person. So, we hit our yearly goal in less than six months. It’s a wonderful service for us. We’ve got a good relationship with Freebee, our vendor. Islamorada has formally asked the county to look at managing their system up there as we grow and just smart stewardship. Let’s keep the management to a minimum and allow the transit system to grow organically and have some normalcy up and down the Keys. So we’re looking at that and seeing what that looks like going forward. Then this is a new year of the grant season, so to speak, for transit and transportation, which is taking a big turn. Before they weren’t giving any money to anybody that wasn’t electrifying. There was no gray area there. You had to electrify. That’s quickly changing even at the federal level. I thought that you might see a continued encouragement, especially given how much Elon Musk is involved in the early stages of this new administration. He said they don’t need, nor do they want supplemental money from the federal government. That’s not what he wants. He wants us to grow because it’s the right method to use, not because the federal government’s pushing it, which is good. For us, electric makes perfect sense when we’re delivering local service. It’s short runs. You have time to do opportunity charges during the day. It’s it just makes all the sense in the world. But for that run from Florida City to Key West, you really need to consider traditional fuels. You really need busses that have bathrooms. We can’t afford to put facilities up and down the Keys. So you have to bring your facilities with you. We’re discussing now with the new administration, and those new administrators at USDOT, it’s going to go back to a business model. How does the transit help business bringing employees to their employer, and especially here in the Keys, we really need to protect the environment that we live in, because people come here, our tourists come here for the environment. So we have to be very careful how we do it and why we do it, but the language we speak now changes. It’s happening fast, I guess, faster than it ever has. This is a second time in the history of the United States where somebody came and won a second term with a term in the middle, so you have somebody who knows the system. So it’s happening much faster than I’ve ever seen it.”
How much of what is done in Monroe County Transit is directed by the federal government or FDOT?
Clark said, “There are two significant grants that come through USDOT, that are what we call discretionary grants, where you write the grant you, you say, this is what I need it for. FDOT is our partner, from a matching perspective on those grants. It’s the bus and bus facilities and low and no emission grant that is millions of dollars, tens of millions. Some of the awards are $15, $20 million. They’re really significant numbers. Then the ferry grant is another federal program that allows rural which is very rare in the rural world, which obviously we are, they let you use it for operational costs. So it’s not just capital, and those are the hardest dollars to come by. FDOT is happy to help you on a capital side, buying busses, helping you with your facilities, what have you. None of them want to be on the hook for operational year over year. So from a federal government perspective, we have two very significant pots of money on top of formula funding that, we have a rural formula here, but it’s based entirely on population. So it is a very important piece as to how we deliver service, not just for Monroe County Transit, but Key West Transit and all of our ADA compliance that Monroe County, there’s social services, and the Guidance Care Center and the VA, I mean, we all work together, but the federal government’s a key partner in that effort.”
With the federal government looking more toward fossil fuels and not as much about climate chance, agencies will need to follow through.
Clark confirmed, “One hundred percent. You simply need to make the case and we’ve made that case in the past, with previous administrations. So it’s not foreign, it’s not new, it’s the way it is and we’ve been communicating like that at the state level for many, many years. It really started with Rick Scott and so we have continued that trend all the way through now with Ron DeSantis. That hasn’t changed.”
Is there any talk at the federal level about new technologies, like a ferry system or hovercraft?
Clark said, “FDOT was very, very encouraged by our ferry grant proposal, and is helping us directly. They want to see us look at Inter Island ferry service and see if it’s viable. I believe it is, just from kind of stepping back and looking at how we move around, I think it’s very viable. We just have to prove it out. They’re not going to give money on a guess. You have to spend the money to see. So FDOT is helping us, and we’re looking at funding from FDOT to formally look at Inter Island ferry, not commuter from the mainland. There aren’t many places that can do that. So that is new. There’s still a lot of interest in autonomous vehicles. Those are mostly electric. They’re low speed. I’ve had a lot of people ask about that, like on, say, on Duvall, or one of the service roads in Islamorada, where you’re off the main highway. The difficulty still to date is, for lack of a better term, we have transit bullies, and they want to see if the thing’s going to stop. So people just jump in front of it and it does. It always stops. It’s not high speed, but down in the Keys, we have chickens and iguanas and you’re going to get all kinds of things that are going to want to make this thing stop. Everything’s a challenge, but it would be really neat to have some low speed autonomous vehicles working down here. So we’re always looking for new and inventive ways to deliver the service that people will use. That’s the key.”
What about a potential hovercraft?
Clark said, “I think in the beginning it’s going to be, I wouldn’t call it a novelty, but it’s going to be an expensive venture. It’s going to be $400 or $500 to climb in something like that and get from Miami to Key West. It’s going to be like a plane ticket. Is it easier to have a vertical take off? Maybe, but you’re still going to have to be in FAA restricted space. There’s a bunch of interesting things when I hear people really intelligent that know that world, the nuances that they’re going to have to follow, the latest of which they said, well if we can’t figure out drones off the east coast, how the heck are you going to put people inside of them? So it’s like, guy you have a point. Is essentially a giant drone.”
There is a bit of bureaucracy involved in funding.
Clark said, “Everybody would love for it to go faster, but there’s a reason why we put hurdles in the government for funding, and it’s because it’s not our money. When it’s the taxpayers’ money, it’s supposed to be hard, it’s supposed to be justified. You have to let the people know what you’re doing with their money. So it just takes more time, and it should. So we really do have to have a full partnership with not just USDOT, not just FDOT, but here within the county and our municipalities here with all our transit partners at Miami Dade and the Regional Planning Council and all those, everything’s got to tie together to make a system work right.”