City’s $375m plan – to be engineered by Hitachi Rail Italy – a serious effort to switch commuters from overcrowding and cars to rail system

What do you get if you put Hitachi’s Japanese engineers, their counterparts from Italy, a schoolgirl choir and the mayor of Miami together in the swamps of Florida? A new metrorail system that Miami’s urban planners hope will bring commuting from the city to its ribbons of suburbs into the 21st century.

But behind the hoopla and celebration surrounding the $375m project unveiled last week is a serious effort to switch US commuters in a major regional city from overcrowded, inefficient and polluting dependence on cars to a model that resembles the European or Asian adoption of mass transit.

Miami, like many other cities across the US, is attempting to redress decades of under-investment in the sector. While cities such as Charlotte, San Diego and Dallas have been successful with the new light rail commuter-moving systems, other cities, including Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington DC, report falling rider numbers despite enormous and costly efforts by transportation officials to entice people out of their cars.

There have been other, unsuccessful attempts to build a light rail in Miami and other cities have run into issues with their own plans, but the engineers here are quietly optimistic that any incoming administration will increase infrastructure budgets, some of which would be targeted to mass transit.

Hillary Clinton has vowed to increase federal funding by $275bn over a five-year period, warning “it is not possible to remain economically competitive in a very, very competitive global economy if we don’t have the infrastructure we need”.

Here on the border of the Everglades, the gleaming new blue and silver cars look enticing: clean-running, silent, with free Wi-Fi and other enticements, but will they help turn the tide against Miami’s congested roadways?

The city’s construction boom has caused chaos on its roads. Coupled with fears that rising sea levels could begin to make tidal flooding more frequent, as well as the intermittent threat of hurricanes, have added to the incentive to overhaul its transportation systems.

For Hitachi, which bought Italian manufacturer AnsaldoBreda and renamed it Hitachi Rail Italy, is looking for deeper penetration in the US market. Current projects include a driverless system in Honolulu scheduled to open next year.

“We believe the rail business in the US is sustainable and growing because many cities have a mass transit system,” noted Kentaro Masai, Hitachi’s global chief operating officer. “We’ve already received support from the government, but were optimistic that ridership, especially among young people, will grow. There are challenges but we are optimistic.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Hitachi’s proposed light rail cars for Miami. Photograph: Hitachi

That optimism is buoyed in part by signs that millennials, facing higher levels of unemployment, lower pay and the likelihood of greater college debts, do not share the same enthusiasm for cars as previous generations. Whereas a car once connoted adulthood, Uber, Zipcar, public transit will now suffice. Only half of millennials get their driver’s licenses at 18.

“The new generation is not in love with the car,” says Carlos Gimenez, mayor of Miami-Dade County. “They’re just as happy to get into a railcar or a bus, or be driven round by an Uber. Cars to them are a hassle whereas for us they were a luxury. It’s a different mindset and we’re seeing more and more in this community.”

Ridership on Miami’s metrorail system stands at 75,000 daily, says Alice Bravo, director of Miami’s department of transportation and public works. There are no projections for increase in riders, but studies have shown congestion on US1, which runs into downtown Miami, would be considerably worse without the rail service. “We have ample capacity to grow,” Bravo says,” and we’re contemplating light rail expansion and provide incentives for using the system. ”

The problems with adoption date to the 1930s when municipal authorities began digging up commuter rail systems and trolleys as the public adopted cars and buses. The system Miami is currently considering for direct access to Miami Beach is in fact on the identical path that existed in 1927. Miami is currently considering a public-private tender for that service.

“I think the time is right,” says Charles Scurr, head of the Citizens Transportation trust. “You can’t think of it just being the auto industries against everyone else. Mass transit is what you need to be a successful big city and that’s what people want. It’s essential for growth.”

But there’s a larger question that overhangs Miami: the rise of the oceans. Even in that event, says Gimenez, the Metrolink is largely elevated so there’s no immediate concern.

“The problem of rising of water is something we’re going to be dealing with but were not underwater yet,” he says. “And a lot of this talk is of doomsday scenarios which, frankly, I do not believe. “We’re going to adapt to the environment like we always have. We’re ahead of it, and anything we do is with any eye to sea level rise and sustainability.”

• This article was amended on 27 March and 2 April 2016 to reflect the fact that Hitachi bought AnsaldoBreda after the firm won the Miami competition.

