The Cooler

Kinda light on the news this morning. Enjoy.

A- HuffPo: Slideshow, Second Saturday Art Walk.

B- Palm Beach Post: Go Tri-Rail.

Tri-Rail ridership hit 4 million trips again last year, with a better job market pushing it back over a threshold not seen since 2008.

[...]

Use of public transportation was up in 2012 across the nation, said Mantill Williams, advocacy communications director for the American Public Transportation Association. And South Florida seems to be “ahead of the curve.”

The group tracks ridership, and for the first three quarters of 2012, commuter rail trips were up more than 8.4 million. Public transportation as a whole accounted for nearly 8 billion trips during that time frame, the group’s ridership study showed.

However, that’s only up 2.6 percent, compared to Tri-Rail’s 3.15 percent. In November, daily ridership crested at 15,000 for the first time since 2008, though that dropped back in December due to the school holidays.

“Where we saw strong job growth, we saw ridership growth sort of follow it,” Williams said. “Almost 60 percent of trips on public transportation is a work trip.”

C- South Florida Business Journal: Pocket change.

Palm Beach resident Mary Estelle Curran has agreed to pay $21.6 million for failing to declare foreign bank accounts in her tax returns.

Curran pleaded guilty on Tuesday for filing false tax returns for 2006 and 2007, according to a news release from the U.S. Department of Justice and the Internal Revenue Service. Curran, a U.S. citizen, maintained undeclared bank accounts at UBS AG in Switzerland and a bank in Liechtenstein, which she inherited from her husband in 2000, according to court documents.

D- CBS4: Historical dig going on in downtown Miami.

MIAMI (CBS4) – Among skyscrapers and cranes in Downtown Miami, archaeologists have been quietly working on a secret dig. Bob Carr with the Archaeological and Historical Conservancy finally spilled the details this week on what he’s been so busy doing since November.

E- WPTV: Like hot cakes.

LAKE WORTH, Fla. - Frustration is growing for some hopeful homeowners hunting in the local housing market. More and more often, affordable homes are only available for weeks, or even days.

That's what Nicole Dimov has seen since she started searching in July.

"Every house we've wanted to see is gone before we can get there," says Dimov.

Quick turnarounds are becoming the norm according to realtor Gina Mattila. She showed a home in Boca Raton recently that was gone within 10 days.

"It does create a sort of feeding frenzy for buyers. I've been in the business 22 years and I've never seen it like this," says Mattila.

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