Below are some of the FYIs in this week’s edition. The entire content of this week’s FYIs and Insider sections is available by subscription only. To subscribe click here. EAST-WEST TRANSIT STUDY: The Florida Department of Transportation is in the process of procuring a study team to look at an elevated fixed guideway transportation system for east-west commuting in Miami-Dade County along the Flagler Street corridor. Once a study team is on board, the state is looking at starting the study of alternatives for the route from downtown to Florida International University in February, the department’s Nilia Cartaya told the Citizens’ Independent Transportation Trust in December. An earlier plan for bus rapid transit running on a 13.5-mile corridor along SR 836 between downtown Miami and a Tamiami terminal was put on hold a year ago by a unanimous vote of the county’s Transportation Planning Organization as the organization’s board sought elevated transit instead of buses. CASH RENTS RISE HERE: While the overall share of US households that rented decreased in the 2019-2023 period, the number of rented units did increase by over a million units (43.3 million to 44.6 million), according to the latest American Community Survey of the US Census Bureau. There were 42.4 million renter-occupied homes that paid cash rent, up about 1.4 million units from the 2014-2018 estimates. Much of this increase was driven by a small number of counties that included Miami-Dade. Others that added the largest number of units paying cash rent were Harris, Travis and Bexar counties in Texas and Kings County, NY. FLORIDA LAYOFFS RISE: Florida ended 2024 with a slight uptick in announced business layoffs from 2023. The state Department of Commerce received 262 worker-adjustment and retraining notifications from businesses during 2024 tied to 12,156 mostly permanent employee layoffs. The numbers are up from 218 notifications in 2023 involving 10,382 jobs and 102 notifications in 2022 for 9,284 workers. Generally, employers with more than 100 workers are required to file notices if they plan large-scale layoffs. FLAGLER BUS RAPID TRANSIT: A plan to monitor bus rapid transit running down the center of Flagler Street for 2.1 miles in dedicated lanes to be repurposed from existing lanes is to see a November 2027 start for the year-long study of how the concept performs in Miami’s traffic. “Right now we are vetting a traffic methodology through our internal offices and also vetting a safety analysis,” Nilia Cartaya of the Florida Department of Transportation said last month. The aim is to award a construction contract for the pilot program in November 2026. The project would use existing bus stops and routes from Northwest Sixth to 27th avenues at a projected capital cost of $7.3 million. Evaluation of the project would be completed in March 2029, the Citizens’ Independent Transportation Trust was told. Related Posts:FYI Miami: June 6, 2024New passenger rail in play for East-West Smart Plan corridorEast-West rapid transit pivots to two new routesKendall transit can’t get started until report due…FYI Miami: May 4, 2023The post FYI Miami: January 9, 2025 appeared first on Miami Today.