Early-morning buses spared, but Miami-Dade’s night riders still face service cuts

Miami-Dade’s transit agency found the money to avoid service cuts in early-morning bus routes, but nighttime riders weren’t so lucky in the latest update to a $14.3 billion county budget proposal by Mayor Daniella Levine Cava.

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Cuts on both ends of the county’s daily bus schedules were a key part of savings in the 2027 budget Levine Cava unveiled in July at a time when the county is facing slowing property-tax revenue growth and state cuts in local sales taxes. Both sales and property taxes fund Miami-Dade’s transit system, and Levine Cava has proposed reductions in both bus routes and service hours starting next spring to address the shortfall.

Ahead of Thursday’s final budget vote by the County Commission, Levine Cava released an updated spending plan that backs off the early-morning bus cuts. She also urged commissioners to consider a 50-cent increase to the current $2.25 transit fare, which would generate the money needed to restore late-night bus service in the 2027 budget, too.

“I strongly encourage the Board to approve a $0.50 fare increase, from $2.25 to $2.75, which will place us in line with other metropolitan systems and will generate approximately $10 million in new revenue each year,” Levine Cava wrote in a memo to commissioners.

The mayor doesn’t specify what transit services would be restored with a higher fare, which would also apply to Metrorail rides. Her still eliminates a dozen low-ridership bus routes that would cost about $9 million to restore, on top of the $10 million needed to restore service after 10 p.m. for about three dozen routes across Miami-Dade.

That means about $19 million worth of transit cuts remain after Levine Cava’s announcement that she found the roughly $12 million needed to continue service before 6 a.m. for more than 40 routes.

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In the run-up to Thursday’s final budget hearing, which starts at 5 p.m. at the Stephen P. Clark Center, transit advocates pushed hardest to restore the early-morning bus service. Levine Cava said new budget calculations from the Office of the Tax Collector and the Clerk of the Court, both independent agencies funded through Miami-Dade’s budget, created enough fiscal breathing room to restore the early-morning service.

Now, bus riders who rely on late-night service are left hoping for the same kind of rescue before commissioners give final approval to the 2027 budget — votes that could come well into Friday morning.

Lorenzo Hall said he’d be stuck paying $30 a night to Uber or Lyft each night if he can’t catch a county bus home to Little Havana from his security job in the Dolphin Mall area. A typical shift starts at 2 p.m. for Hall and ends at 10 p.m., the time when Miami-Dade plans to eliminate service for three dozen bus routes in order to cut about $10 million from the transit budget.

Hall, 35, needs to catch two buses on his two-hour trip home, meaning he usually walks in the door around midnight.

An extra $30 daily commuting expense isn’t in Hall’s budget. “If they eliminate bus service after 10 p.m., I can’t stay late or keep this job anymore because I wouldn’t have a way to get home,” Hall told the Miami Herald.

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