Could this be the start of a migration by rail?
South Florida commuters will soon get the low-cost, faster train service they’ve yearned for between Palm Beach and Broward counties to downtown Miami as Tri-Rail, the publicly subsidized rail service, will start operating “express” trains with limited stops. The start date: July 1, the rail line announced Friday.
Tri-Rail also declared it intends to start a late-evening northbound train out of Miami International Airport aimed at airline and airport workers who toil during late-night shifts. The railroad also hopes to catch airline travelers arriving aboard later flights.
The service will offer some relief to local customers of Brightline, who have seen the prices of one-way and roundtrip tickets in South Florida rise considerably as the high-speed line turns its focus to attracting passengers to its extended rail line to Orlando International Airport that was launched last September. Brightline customers have been contacting Tri-Rail about its services to Miami, Tri-rail’s top executive says.
The Tri-Rail announcement came after the board of the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority, which operates the commuter line, approved the company’s annual budget, which includes $6 million to operate the upgraded services.
The company introduced its downtown Miami service in January, but passengers have had to change trains at a MetroRail transfer station between Opa-locka and Hialeah.
The enhanced Tri-Rail service will be a “one-seat ride,” and won’t require passengers to disembark to connect to shuttle trains that travel in and out of MiamiCentral station. The faster trains’ schedule is expected to cut the travel times between West Palm Beach and Miami by more than 30 minutes, the company said.
Riders ready for a change
The fare differences between Brightline and Tri-Rail have become an increasingly sensitive issue for South Florida rail commuters. A one-way trip between Tri-Rail’s Fort Lauderdale station west of Interstate 95 to downtown Miami was listed at $5 on Friday, according to an online Tri-Rail fare calculator. Depending on the time, Brightline showed one-way “Smart” tickets ranging from $29 to $44 for the last seven southbound trains listed Friday for trips from Fort Lauderdale to Miami.
There is a big travel time difference, though. The Brightline ride is 38 minutes along the Florida East Coast Railway corridor, where the railway has five stations on the tracks that parallel U.S. 1. The Tri-Rail ride, which includes the transfer at the Metro-Rail station, takes almost two hours along a state-owned rail corridor that runs mainly west of I-95. Tri-Rail has 19 stops on that corridor.
Nonetheless, Tri-Rail is hearing from Brightline customers, said David Dech, executive director of the transporation authority.
“We have been in touch with a lot of [Brightline] passengers,” Dech said in an interview Friday. “We had people show up at the board meeting. We have been in contact with businesses. I expect to see people move over from that line to this one.”
In a statement, Tri-Rail called the faster Miami service “a seamless one-seat ride to and from Downtown Miami, significantly reducing travel time between the West Palm Beach and MiamiCentral stations.”
The new express train will depart West Palm Beach at 6:30 a.m., the company said, “with strategically limited stops” at Boca Raton, its Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport station at Dania Beach, and the Metrorail transfer station west of downtown Miami before arriving at MiamiCentral station at 8:05 a.m.
In the evening, a return express train will depart MiamiCentral at 5:35 p.m., “providing commuters with a convenient and expedited journey home.”
“By offering a one-seat ride and reducing travel time, we aim to provide an enhanced commuting experience for our passengers and attract new riders to Tri-Rail,” Dech said in the statement.
Tri-Rail said it remains committed to its current schedule of 26 trains operating on weekdays and 23 trains on weekends for MiamiCentral, “ensuring continued connectivity with Downtown Miami, with all non-express trains still transferring at the Metrorail Transfer Station.”