Fontainebleau pauses worker vanpool after state subsidy stalls, city memo says

A plan to get Fontainebleau workers out of their cars and into shared vans is on hold, according to a Miami Beach memo for a commission committee meeting Monday, Nov. 9.

The Mid-Beach hotel signed a partnership agreement in December 2025 with Commute with Enterprise, a vanpool service offered through the state-funded South Florida Commuter Services, to promote the option to its more than 4,000 employees, the memo says. At an Aug. 11 planning meeting, hotel managers objected to the price: about $166 a month per rider for a seven-seat van with five riders, compared with the $60 to $80 a month discussed earlier.

The lower figure had assumed an extra $500-per-van monthly subsidy from the state for the first three months. That subsidy is on hold while the Florida Department of Transportation reviews its 2027 budget, the memo says, and the hotel asked to pause outreach to employees.

Why it matters on Collins Avenue

A city survey of Fontainebleau workers last year drew 483 responses, about 29% of the workforce. Nearly 80% said they drive to work alone, 67% said their commute takes 30 minutes or more, and 74% named traffic as their biggest problem. Just over half said they would ride a free employee shuttle from a park-and-ride lot.

The memo also says Miami-Dade County’s planned Beach Express North bus, which would run from the Golden Glades transportation hub and the Earlington Heights Metrorail station over the Julia Tuttle Causeway to Mount Sinai Medical Center, the Fontainebleau and City Center, is delayed by a lack of money and buses. The county has given no launch date.

The city is not paying for the vanpool and will keep working with the hotel and the state, the memo says. Commissioner Laura Dominguez sponsored the item. The committee meets at 9 a.m. Monday at City Hall, 1700 Convention Center Drive.