Tri-Rail, the commuter rail service linking Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade Counties recently reached a significant milestone – one-hundred-million riders.

You may wonder how that affects you, particularly if you are not currently a rider. Consider this: for every person who takes Tri-Rail, that is potentially one less vehicle on the highway. Taking the train can save you wear and tear on your vehicle, help reduce the carbon footprint, and afford you a window of time to perhaps read the news, catch up on work or studies, and avoid the aggravation of crowded highway driving.

Tri-Rail commenced operations on January 9, 1989. It covers a service area of 73.4 miles between the three counties, with 18 stations. The hours of operation are 4:00 a.m. to 11:35 p.m. on 50 weekday trains and 5:17 a.m. to 11:45 p.m. on 30 weekend and holiday trains. See the following link for schedules.

The service, operated by the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority (SFRTA) on which I serve as the Palm Beach County Commission’s representative, provides a comfortable, safe commute to connect you with business, educational, retail and recreational venues in the Tri-County region for a reasonable fare. Fares run from $1.25 to $17.50 based on zones traveled and discount eligibility. Frequent riders may choose to preload an EASY card with fares, (similar to a SunPass card) validated as passengers board and exit the train. Passes and paper tickets are available at Tri-Rail stations and not sold onboard the train. Information on calculating your fares in order to plan for your trips is located here.

Daily weekday ridership on Tri-Rail is approximately 15,000, and is currently operating at 92% of pre-COVID service. Compared with other cities’ rail services around the U.S. that have experienced a slower recovery, Tri-Rail is a service, tourism and construction industry-based ridership that cannot telework. With Tri-Rail connecting to all three major airports in the region, the Authority anticipates that airport ridership will return to 100% by the end of 2021.

The tri-counties connect rail riders with their respective bus services, light rail and people movers to take riders to their final destinations and back. For stations in Palm Beach County, Palm Tran – the public transit bus system - provides shuttle service from Tri-Rail stations to destinations, along with taxis and transportation network companies such as Uber and Lyft.

South Florida is the fifth largest urbanized area in the U.S. with more than five million residents, projected to grow by another three million people within the next 20 years. Planning for this future growth, SFRTA is embarking on large-scale projects, including Coastal Link, which will reintroduce passenger service along an 85-mile stretch of the Florida East Coast (FEC) Railway corridor between downtown Miami and Jupiter, connecting the rail networks. Transit-oriented developments (TOD) at stations along the eastern Coastal Link corridor are in the study phase. Development at locations where SFRTA owns land would result in a revenue stream for the agency. One of the proposed new stations for which I strongly advocated while serving as mayor and councilmember for the City of Palm Beach Gardens, would be located at the southwest corner of PGA Boulevard and Alternate A1A and would likely include a significant development of hotel, retail, office and residential uses with convenient access to the train. The station could potentially serve both Tri-Rail and Brightline, the private high-speed-rail train service currently constructing tracks to provide service from Miami to Orlando and from Orlando to Tampa.

There is also heightened interest in conducting a feasibility study for a Tri-Rail station at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Riviera Beach. This would enhance transportation options for veterans to access services as well as present an opportunity for residents in the western communities to access the train. Additionally, Palm Tran is working with SFRTA on plans to achieve fare collection interoperability between the transit systems in all three counties, to promote a seamless fare system in the region.

With road networks reaching capacity, a multimodal transportation system is essential to maintaining our economic competitiveness, high quality of life, and protecting our environment. This is the vision of the SFRTA.

As always, please contact me if I can be of assistance to you by calling 561-355-2201 or send an email to mmarino@pbcgov.org.