Project History

The Orange Line Phase 3/East-West corridor was studied in the East-West Multimodal Corridor Major Investment Study/Draft Environmental Impact Statement in 1995, and the East-West Multimodal Corridor Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) in 1998.  A Locally Preferred Alternative (LPA)/Minimum Operable Segment (MOS) emerged from this process and was the subject of a Record of Decision (ROD) issued jointly by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) in 1998 but there was no funding for the project at that time.  Later, the East-West corridor was one of the Metrorail corridors proposed in the People’s Transportation Plan (PTP), which includes all the projects the County wants to fund with the half-cent sales tax approved by Miami-Dade voters in 2002.  Changes in growth and development along the corridor also contributed to a redefinition of planned transit investments.

A Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement (SDEIS) is being prepared by Miami-Dade Transit and the result will be a LPA.

Once the Preliminary Engineering and Final Environmental Impact Statement are completed, the FTA issues their ROD and the East-West Metrorail Extension can move into Final Design. The current schedule for project completion is August 2016.