Public transportation advocates have something to cheer about, following the a meeting between a state-owned Spanish rail firm FEVE and Miami Beach public works staff that could result in new light rail connecting Miami Beach to the mainland, the Miami Herald reported. The city may hire FEVE, which runs a 777-mile rail system in Spain, to conduct a study assessing the feasibility of installing a new system.
José González, transportation manager for Miami Beach, said the meeting focused on finalizing a proposal for a “pre-feasibility study” for bringing streetcar without overhead lines, or catenaries to South Beach.
“This relationship with FEVE is more than anything in the context of seeing if the technology FEVE is currently operating in Seville — a catenary-free streetcar technology — if that’s implementable, feasible, buildable here in the United States and obviously what would that cost,” González said. [Miami Herald] —Christopher Cameron