The first route of the Smart Program to add six Miami-Dade transit legs was not elevated as some had hoped, but much of it sits up in the air as it nears two years past its initial completion date with nobody yet aboard. South Dade Bus Rapid Transit remains in construction, with opening targeted in next year’s second quarter. But the trust that doles out transit tax receipts to help make it go was told last week that unknowns, great and small, still loom. Greatest by far is the original vow by the county: total Bus Rapid Transit that need not stop at crossings. That now is ruled out at opening and will only be studied for state approval for more nonstop hours based on system use.  Meanwhile, buses will whiz through intersections only from 6 to 9 a.m. heading from Homestead to Dadeland and from 4 to 6 p.m. going south on the 20-mile route. At other hours, the route is to cut exactly 4 minutes from the old bus schedules before the $368 million project. The Citizens’ Independent Transportation Trust, which oversees transit tax receipts, knew that last week, but it learned of other issues also up in the air before opening. One of the biggest is fare collections. Nobody is even hinting what fares might be, but the county now has no way to collect anything. Fare boxes must be installed on the new electric buses using the route, and nobody knows when that might happen. Balky county bus fare boxes don’t mesh with new collection software, so new fare boxes are due. Installing them has been restored to duties of the firm that’s developing the route, and how long that will take is unknown. “We’re evaluating the schedule impact for that and may come back to this board to review,” Alex Barrios, assistant transportation director for construction and maintenance, told the trust last week. “Right now we’re shooting for the second quarter of 2025, but we have to evaluate how the fare collection system integrates,” and the department will say more “soon.” If that sounds to you like another delay, it sure did to trust Chairman Robert Wolfarth, who asked “Do they plan on opening the corridor before the new fare box is ready and implemented?” “I don’t believe we have that information,” Mr. Barrios replied. “We’re still evaluating the impact of the fare collection. We should have that information soon,” adding that it could change the bus system’s opening date. “I don’t want it to be a farebox collection issue as being the delay,” Mr. Wolfarth warned. “We’re looking forward to having this opening in the first half of next year.” Assuming other pending issues are cleared, that could mean free rides until fare system bugs are resolved. Anticipate a county announcement of free rides, touted as a way to introduce auto riders to the joys of bus travel. That’s not the sole unknown that could delay an opening. Another is construction of the $268 million South Dade Transit Operations Center, originally planned at $56 million. The center isn’t part of the busway’s budget but it’s where buses will be controlled and recharged and gate arms stored. It’s not expected to be ready for the bus system’s opening, but the county says it has temporary arrangements for charging – another potential hiccup.   Also awaited is switching out the 20-mile route’s existing traffic signal controllers on crossing roadways, which Mr. Barrios called a moving timeline with a schedule delay. “These were a specific brand,” he explained to the trust. “They had to communicate with the ones that are being installed now on the corridor. So they’re being changed so both the controllers on US 1 and the controllers on the busway are the same model, same manufacturer, so they’re able to better communicate, because it’s a complex system with the gate arms. The trigger on the busway will also trigger auxiliary intersections like US 1 … or other intersections. So that integration is the one that’s causing us the schedule delay.” Other unknowns don’t menace an opening date. Pylons to highlight each station’s name on a slender illuminated column visible at a distance along US 1 are still rising and colorful lighting isn’t likely as planned by the time the system opens.  Beyond the timing of colored lighting, however, is what each station will actually be named. The county has been coy about the names for years, perhaps looking at selling naming rights, as it recently did on the Metrorail station now named for UHealth and the county’s Jackson Hospital.  If names aren’t sold by opening, perhaps stations will properly be named for their locations until buyers surface, or perhaps they’ll be named for past commissioners, as the South Dade Performing Arts Center was for Dennis Moss. Illuminated pylons will someday reveal which. The most positive unknown is the actual cost of constructing and preparing the route. Although the transportation trust last week unanimously OK’d a $17 million change in the overall contract with OHLA USA to remove and replace existing traffic signals and resurface 10 added miles of the old busway, the contract stays at the allocated $368 million – and the current estimate for completion is less, $341.8 million.  This so-called Bus Rapid Transit on an existing busway was expected to be the easiest of the county’s six Smart corridors to get going fast. That’s why it was first. It’s actually going to run, though dates and costs and real speeds are works in progress.  For the sakes of untold numbers of potential riders exiting congested US 1 traffic to ride buses, as well as the future of all new county mass transit, it better be good. 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