The First Morning of the Transitway (Oct. 27, 2025)

Описание: After so many problems and delays, the upgraded South Dade Busway, now called the Transitway, launched on Monday, October 27th. In an unusual move, the formal, star-studded dedication ceremony was held a full 5 days before. On this day, we perhaps learned why the odd scheduling. As the service has not been executed as was promised to the public.

Now, with the launch of the Transitway, the former rush hour-only route 34 express was renumbered to 601, rebranded as "Metro Express", and its service hours dramatically expanded to 7 days a week, 5am to Midnight. That is wonderful and the sole bright spot in this. As, unfortunately, routes 52 and 287 were truncated to the Transitway on this day, no longer servicing Dadeland South Station, turning a 1 seat ride to Metrorail into a 2-seat ride, and a 2-seat ride anywhere beyond that into a 3-seat ride. Which is bad. That will be deadly for ridership, especially on the remaining 287 I fear, as it was always the runt of the Busway litter. Route 38 was renumbered to 602, rebranded to the Transitway Local (in an almost perverse revival of the deceased route 31's co-name) and removed from the Goulds community and realigned to stay on the Transitway full time, replaced by a rerouted and beefed-up route 52, which now features a curious, short Goulds to South Miami Heights short turn that operates 7 days a week, deep into the night (10:30pm).

But the biggest surprise of them all has been the revelation that standard CNG coaches are still operating on the new Transitway, unable to serve the new BRT stops without significant emergency intervention, providing all route service on the 602 and serving the former "temporary" bus stops, mainly located across the street from where a BRT station is. This was not, and to date has not, been announced to the public, as it was expected that the 602 would service all stops, including the BRT stations, with the same dual-side-door articulated coaches that provide all service currently on the 601. This has led to horrendous overcrowding, mainly on the 601 in the morning rush, as there is no short turn route (31, 39, 52, 287) to help out while the 602 can't serve the BRT stops, except as directed by management where the 602 can serve them using contraflow procedures (serving the BRT stations from the opposite lane).

In my opinion, that's because the Coral Way bus garage, where the 601/602 are temporarily running out of, had to ship almost all (except E22140) of their failed Proterra ZX-5s to the unopened South Dade garage to make room, doesn't have the physical space needed to house all the New Flyer XE60s required to cover both routes. There have been major issues with getting South Dade open, thus this temporary arrangement. I wish this would've been announced openly, but thankfully staff were on hand, and they were very helpful!!

As far as the Grand Opening gala, I boycotted it due to the presence of certain parties I have no use for, specifically Representative (and former Miami-Dade Mayor) Carlos Gimenez, whom I personally consider to be the greatest anti-Transit villain in history, who promised voters a full Metrorail expansion during his 2016 campaign for a 2nd full term in office (and 3rd overall), only to completely disavow that the second he won re-election, and also both publicly and privately denigrating us hard-working front line transit workers repeatedly. While he got his way in South Dade, the 27th Avenue "North Corridor" expansion is proceeding, albeit slowly, thanks to Florida's Department of Transportation doing us a (rare) solid and siding with Metrorail expansion as the way to go.

Anyway, this is day 1, and it includes an attempted full ride from Dadeland South to SW 152nd Street, until I had to stop the video as the lights were taking too long, and my battery started to run down. This signaling problem is an ongoing albatross around the Transitway's neck and it needs to be solved ASAP!

Anyway...you've probably seen a few videos of this already. Just know that here at TAT we support what benefits our passengers and front-line transit workers, and we disregard the public and political spin and show how things really are. We love our fellow transit hobbyists and responsible urbanists, but have no use for the starry-eyed, "influencers" that come here from elsewhere, get bedazzled and repeat the official spin, with no clue as to how things were or what was promised beforehand. Sorry...it all looks pretty, but at the end of the day, it's still a bus and it's still the Busway.

As a bonus, at the very end a pic of 09105 on route 100, taken that night, is included. I had completed this video before earning the news, but the last two surviving 09100s (09101 and 09105) were retired on Monday, November 17th, bringing the 15-year career of these NABI 40LFW hybrids to an end. So, it makes for a fitting end to this video. A tribute to them will come in the future. We salute these soldiers on a job well done!!