It was buried in a longish speech about how the new transit 
and mobility services committee can identify new sources of revenue to pay for the needed transit issues that they are finally paying attention to, but somewhere between Commissioner Esteban “Stevie” Bovo going to Tallahassee to see if MDX funds can be applied to county projects and the consideration of public private partnerships was the first new talk of a bed tax increase.
“There was an effort to raise the bed tax for the Dolphins. Perhaps there is a neat idea that tourist can help fund our roads,” said Bovo, the new chairman of the committee, at its first meeting earlier this month, setting an aggressive tone for the board.
Bovo is really fired up. He credited Vice Chair Dennis Moss with constantly reminding them that the state our public transit system would directly impact our status as a world class city. “You’re singing my song,” Moss said, calling Bovo a “breath of fresh air.”
Fresh air? At County Hall?
Looks like it. Ladra may still be suspicious about his role in that absentee ballot fraud at his district office in 2012, but this is not the first time he impresses me at the dais.
Bovo admitted that the county has failed to provide for adequate transit growth.
“We have seen over the last 30 years the growth of our county in some ways become very disjointed where urban areas and suburban areas have been disconnected completely. 
And we have a mission to try to connect our community,” he said, also adding that he would not support any more expensive third party consultant studies.
“We have seen over the last couple of years every study possibly done on corridors… and I don’t propose that this committee should launch any more studies or investigations or think-tanks on what needs to be done,” Bovo said. “What I do believe is our mission, it has to be our mission, is to identify sources of funding that could help meet the demand and get these projects done.”
Hallelujah!
“If we continue to just discuss these items and then hope that somebody is going to come and bail us out that is not going to happen,” Bovo said. “And that’s not a testament that that’s what’s been done in the past.”
Sure, it’s not.
“But the reality is that the engineers have done all the work, the bureaucrats have done all the work, and now it’s up to the elected body to start moving the dial.”
And then he took the bold move of taking accountability — even before nothing happens. You don’t see that every day.
“In the next two years that I chair this committee… if we do not have some sort of movement within the next couple of years, — and by that I mean dedicated funding and shovels in the ground moving forward — then I will tell you quite honestly that my tenure as chair of this committee would be a failure,” Bovo said, adding that he will call special meetings if he has to, in order to get something — anything — done.
One possible funding route would be the Miami Expressway Authority, or MDX, which is funded by increased tolls 
that has caused many typical expressway drivers to take alternate routes on the street “and add more to the gridlock and lack of quality of life,” Bovo said, adding that he has heard the “anxiety people have with MDX.”
Bovo also mentioned looking into P3s for transit and said he had a conversation with Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart and would be meeting with Congressman Carlos Curbelo to see if they could help fill in the gaps. “I don’t expect the federal government to bail us out. I don’t expect the federal government to fund 80 percent of our projects,” Bovo said. “We’ll come to them with projects funded 70 to 75 percent and ask them to top it off.
“All we need is that push over the hurdle.
“Another possible source of funding is bed tax money,” he said. “I’m willing to have that conversation so perhaps we can find another stream of money that can be dedicated to the different corridors that we’ve been talking about.”
They can use an increase in the bed tax, he said, and that can be decided later.
“We’ve talked about corridors. We’ve seen all the plans. And I’m not here today to commit to one corridor or another. But I will say this: We need to pick a corridor and we need to get it done. We need to start regaining the confidence that our residents gave us back when they gave us the half penny. and we need to show them a project. Because right now, as far as I’m concerned, it’s all a lot of talk. People need to start seeing some action.
“So whether it’s North corridor, Bay Link, East-West, South. Heaven knows they are all screaming for something,” Bovo said.
He’s right, you know. After all the myriad studies and task forces and blue ribbon committees, all we want is to see something come out of it. There’s no way the population supports a bed tax increase for this unless there is something on the table.
Moss and the other commissioners on the committee, Barbara Jordan, Juan Zapata, Bruno Barreiro, Jose “Pepe” Diaz and Xavier Suarez — who, of course, had some ideas of his own — welcomed Bovo’s message and his initiative to take leadership position on this.
And there’s no better time than the present, now that transit is the hot buzz word at the Stephen P. Clark Center and you can expect there to be a lot more conversations like this one.
But Ladra is worried about the other action that may be at play here. After all, transit projects equals lots of engineering work and construction and development and concrete. Someone is going to make money.
Does Bovo believe his own mantra: Pick a project, any project. Or is this a disguised prelude to find a dedicated source of revenue for yet another insider deal with the usual friends and family suspects?
After all, he seems really fired up, talking about traveling to DC and Tallahassee. “We need to start banging the drums loud and hard.
“I’m willing to go to my community who has been very hesitant in the past of dealing with these items because they feel that their pocketbook has been pillaged enough and I’m willing to have frank conversations with them on the realities of what we’re dealing with in this community.”
Stay tuned and watch for a bed tax increase referendum on a ballot near you to pay for traffic fixes that — now that MDX tolls are astronomical and people are revolting — everybody might just vote for.
Give us gridlock and we’ll pay to get out of it.
Stevie Bovo talks tough on transit, floats bed tax for projects added by Ladra on
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