Stacy Miller, Director and CEO, Miami-Dade County Department of Transportation & Public Works

Invest: spoke with Stacy Miller, director and CEO of the Miami-Dade County Department of Transportation & Public Works, about the county’s transportation priorities, Metro  Express, mobility access, safety, and technology. “We are that mechanism for people to find those opportunities and be able to enhance those opportunities through transportation,” Miller said.

What are the biggest challenges and priorities in expanding and modernizing transportation infrastructure across Miami-Dade County? 

We are blessed to have a multibillion-dollar infrastructure program here in Miami-Dade County that includes transit investments and expansion, roadway improvements, bridge improvements,  lighting, and traffic signalization. This all happens while we are operating the 10th-largest transit agency in the United States. 

It is a complex system of different transportation aspects encompassed under the Department of Transportation and Public Works. We move about 84 million people annually on our transit system, covering 74 Metrobus routes, 25 miles of Metrorail, 4.4 miles of Metromover, and now  20 miles of bus rapid transit through our brand-new Metro Express service in South County. We also have over 9,000 miles of roadway and 3,000 traffic signals.

Our program is large because we have tremendous assets that we have to operate, maintain, and provide services for. 

How is Metro Express influencing ridership, service reliability, and sustainability goals in  Miami-Dade County? 

We are excited about the launch of Metro Express. It is one of our most significant recent milestones. It is the county’s first bus rapid transit service, the first SMART corridor to come online, and the nation’s longest fully electric bus rapid transit system. 

The corridor is 20 miles long with dedicated lanes. It is a more rail-like experience than a traditional bus route. It has 14 iconic stations with air conditioning, which is important for people in Miami waiting for their bus. It also has rail gate arms. As a bus approaches an intersection,  gate arms come down, similar to what would happen on a rail corridor, creating separation between the bus and cross-street traffic. We are the first to introduce that technology.

Metro Express connects Florida City with Dadeland South, which allows people to move through the southern part of the county and then access Metrorail or other parts of our Metrobus network. We are already saving people 30 to 40 minutes in each direction. This is not just a fantastic way to get around the county; we are saving people time. 

Our buses have Wi-Fi, so people can work, read, or watch a movie while traveling. There are also charging points at each seat. We previously had five services on the busway. We now have two services on the transitway: an express service and a local service. We move over 10,000  people a day between these two routes. 

This strengthens the opportunity for people to get to jobs, education, healthcare, and other key destinations. Since we started moving from the busway to the transitway, we have seen the southern part of the county grow. We are not just introducing the southern part of the county to the rest of the county; we are also making it easier for residents across Miami-Dade to access it with easy, safe, reliable service. 

How are you integrating buses, rail, roads, and newer mobility options into a more unified transportation system? 

It is a complicated network. We have 74 Metrobus fixed routes, 774 buses that run every day, 25 miles of Metrorail, more than four miles of Metromover, and now 20 miles of bus rapid transit. It is about understanding that we want to provide our residents and visitors with options. Not everybody wants to be a single-occupant vehicle traveler. We have congestion in Miami-Dade,  as most major metropolitan cities do, but we want to provide options. That means we have a large network of sidewalks and continue to expand our network of bike lanes and trails, giving people other options and helping them get to our major fixed routes, whether that is bus, rail, or mover. 

Micromobility, e-bikes, and other electronic devices are becoming more popular and important as part of the first-mile, last-mile transition as people move around our communities. For us, it is about making the right investment in the right location and providing the transportation needs that our community wants. 

These investments are often expensive, and we have a confined roadway network. Building onto that roadway network can be expensive, so it is about using all of the resources available to us, working with the Florida Department of Transportation on its roadway network and local municipalities on theirs to meet the different needs of our residents and visitors. 

How are you working to increase ridership, improve passenger experience, and ensure passenger safety? 

We have one of the safest systems in the United States. We are the 10th-largest system, which means we carry hundreds of thousands of passengers every day, but we do have a safe system.

We partner with local law enforcement through the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office, and we have our own security contracts to make sure we have security at each of our stations. We also have security that assists with various routes. We will send a team out to monitor a particular route,  which is a way of spot-checking the safety of our system. 

We are also required to provide safety updates to the state of Florida and the Federal Transit  Administration. We want to make sure we have a safe, reliable system, and it is important that passengers feel comfortable whatever time of day they are on our system. You will often see our security team present, assisting not only from a safety perspective but also helping passengers navigate the system. 

On ridership, Metro Express has over 10,000 riders a day, which is exciting for us. We previously had five routes serving about that same number, so converting from five routes to two routes and still having that same number, while growing the number of passengers, shows that we had a service that was needed. 

We must continue to evaluate the services we provide and make sure we are meeting the needs of our residents. We have seen a slight contraction in ridership, which is not unique to  Miami-Dade. That is happening nationally. Even though we are seeing that contraction, we are still growing services and meeting the needs of our community. Three times a year, we evaluate certain services and determine whether we should make adjustments, provide more service, or adjust service routes to better serve our riders, who are always our priority. 

How has your leadership shaped your decision-making and commitment to mentorship within the department? 

I have had the pleasure of working in this male-dominated industry for over 30 years, and it has changed and evolved. Many more women have now entered the transportation industry. I am a civil engineer, and there were not many of us who graduated in the program with me, but that has increased. 

It is important that we represent our communities, regardless of their makeup, and that we have representation from all facets of our communities working in transportation. While I gained my knowledge at the Florida Department of Transportation, I was afforded opportunities to improve my supervisory, management, and leadership skills and to take accountability for my actions and the actions of the team. When we do fantastic work, which we do every day, the team takes credit for that. When things do not go as expected, that is for me to deal with and help the team solve. 

The team is more important to me than I am in this system. Yes, I have a title, and I lead the department, but what each team member does every day moves millions of people in Miami-Dade County. Regardless of their job title or role, they need to understand they are just as important, if not more important, than me. 

Infrastructure delivery is a long-term effort. Projects can take decades to construct, but we always need to focus on what is important today while planning for the future. We take pride in having produced our first countywide long-term master plan for the department. Regardless of whether I am sitting in the director’s seat, I want to set DTPW and the county up for success. 

How do transportation policy and infrastructure investments drive economic mobility and access to opportunity? 

We are one of the fastest-growing communities in the country, and we are economically important. We are the gateway to the Americas. It is important that we provide great access,  and transportation goes hand in hand with that access. 

We are actively delivering transportation systems that are resilient, sustainable, and ready for the future of Miami-Dade. Metro Express started as a concept many years ago, when the southern part of the county looked quite different from what it does today. Even though that investment took a while to construct, we are now providing fantastic service for those residents, moving people to and from the southern part of Miami-Dade County. 

We also support transit-oriented development. As part of our corridors and reinvestments into our systems, we are providing housing. Housing and transportation are issues people talk about often, and we get to collaborate on both. It also brings more passengers and patrons to our system, making it easily accessible to get from housing to our system to job opportunities,  healthcare, and education. By aligning transit with housing, retail, office space, and public amenities, we are not just moving people more efficiently; we are creating more connected,  walkable communities, with 15 developments completed and 14 more in progress, delivering over 10,000 residential units. 

How is the department leveraging technology to improve operations and rider experience? 

Metro Express is a great example as it is a fully electric service. We purchased a fleet dedicated to the Metro Express transitway, and we are building our first Transit Operations Center in over  40 years. It was built from the ground up, with consideration for electric buses and the operation and maintenance of those buses. 

We are invested in finding sustainable, reliable transportation options. We have a mixed fleet,  and as technology changes, we continue to invest in and adapt to new technology. We are also investing in an upgrade to our traffic signalization system. The traffic signalization system in Miami-Dade County is old, and the technology associated with it has become outdated.

We are investing in a five-year program to replace all of the controllers, or the brains, of the traffic signals with updated technology and software improvements. We also have parking garages, like our new 168th Street location with more than 640 spaces, EV charging, and modern technology, including real-time parking availability. It makes it easier for residents to connect to Metro Express and the local bus service. 

Some newer garages use technology to show drivers how many spaces are available and on which floors. It is part of providing a great user experience. 

We want people to park their cars and get on a fixed-route service instead of driving into the city, but we want them to have a great experience while doing that. We are also modernizing systems to help reschedule our bus routes. We are always looking for ways to improve the system while being economically efficient. It is not AI or new technology for the sake of new technology; it is analyzing what will serve us best and how we can serve our patrons for the future.