To aid efforts with a commuter-rail system, Broward County commissioners have decided they prefer the construction of a new bridge for the New River — instead of building a tunnel.
After being presented with four choices, ranging from the least expensive $303 million bridge to a $3 billion tunnel, the county recently concluded that it favors some version of a bridge — even as it acknowledges the city of Fort Lauderdale opposes the plans.
The bridge could be as short as 1½ miles long, versus the tunnel that could stretch 3½ miles.
If a bridge were to built, the bill would be ultimately be paid for by the federal government, state government, and county government.
Not so fast, says the city of Fort Lauderdale. The city’s mayor, Dean Trantalis, has long argued that building a bridge through its downtown would be a detriment to the city.
Developers, too, oppose the idea, and have long ago complained that a giant bridge would cast a shadow over a bustling city center. An underground tunnel is the best way to get Brightline’s high-speed passenger trains across the New River while preserving a growing downtown, they argue.
When U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was scheduled to board an afternoon Brightline train from West Palm Beach to Fort Lauderdale on Tuesday to help underscore the Biden Administration’s efforts to fund improvements at airports, seaports, rail line and roadways in Florida and elsewhere around the nation, Trantalis said he’d tell Buttigieg when he had his ear: We need a tunnel.
“The Biden Administration has moved forward in trying to connect our communities,” he said.
Yet the city already has a train track that has “been for decades a barrier between those who live on those sides of the track and those on those sides of the tracks. A bridge will permanently cement that wall between the communities.”
The tunnel, he said, would extend north of Sunrise Boulevard to south of Davie Boulevard.
“The federal government told us numerous times they aren’t going to build (in) the middle of Fort Lauderdale, and the county has been told this,” he said.
County Commissioner Robert McKinzie said he doesn’t buy the Fort Lauderdale argument of opposing a bridge.
“Bridges have never divided communities, tracks have never divided communities,” he said. “People and economics have divided communities. But that’s what they’re throwing out there.”
Others expressed exasperation about an issue with no resolution in sight.
“It’s getting to the point where it’s as little bit ridiculous,” said County Commissioner Michael Udine. “We don’t have the money in this country to spend billions of dollars on a tunnel. They aren’t going to build a tunnel in South Florida right now.”
“We need to get across this river.”
Udine said the community is going to have a say: “We have to keep trying to move this forward somehow. At the end of the day, residents are demanding some form of commuter rail.”
Others said it was time to make a decision and ready for a formal vote.
“I want to get this thing going,” said Commissioner Mark Bogen. “Enough talking about the tunnel, it’s ridiculous cost.”
Lisa J. Huriash can be reached at lhuriash@sunsentinel.com. Follow on X, formerly Twitter, @LisaHuriash