Florida Mayors Warn Against Scratching Rail Plan While Awaiting Autonomous Cars

Leaders of two South Dade cities have a warning for Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez: Don't try to convince us to wait for driverless cars when we've been promised a new rail line. The mayors of Cutler Bay and Palmetto Bay wrote Gimenez this week to protest what they claim was a major reversal during a private May 15 meeting on the county's multi-billion-dollar plan to expand rail countywide. Instead of extending Metrorail south to Florida City, Gimenez reportedly floated the idea of using high-tech buses as a transition to a transportation revolution: the arrival of autonomous cars and their ability to revolutionize highway travel. "If the county's plan is to abandon what has been promised by way of the SMART plan, then it is only fair that we let the residents know now," read the May 22 letter from Peggy Bell, the mayor of Cutler Bay, and Eugene Flinn, Palmetto Bay's mayor. "However, we want to make it clear that our position has not changed and that we feel that the County is breaking another promise made to the residents which will undoubtedly shake the trust of its constituency."