MIAMI — Mayor Carlos Gimenez said that Miami-Dade can’t afford to build more rail lines and should invest millions in transit dollars creating modernized express bus systems running north and south, the Miami Herald reports.

Gimenez’s $534 million proposal for rapid-bus routes would indefinitely defer the Metrorail expansion promised voters in 2002 during a referendum for a half-percent transportation tax that currently generates about $250 million a year.

It also would leave the mayor’s celebrated SMART Plan to expand rapid transit countywide mostly as a blueprint for faster bus service in the short-term rather than an historic expansion of rail in multiple directions countywide. For the full story, click here.