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Tri-Rail, its new downtown Miami Central Station, and the benefits the tri-county commuter rail system has brought, were the main subjects of a Mobility Matters video podcast hosted by Javier Betancourt, executive director of the Citizens’ Independent Transportation Trust. On hand was Raquel Regalado, Miami-Dade County Commissioner for District 7 and immediate past chair of the board of the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority, along with the Authority’s Executive Director David Dech.
Regalado explained that Tri-Rail was created to get folks off Interstate 95 as one of its main tasks to improve tri-county mobility from Miami-Dade through Broward and onto Palm Beach County.
“I think we’ve done an amazing job. Our numbers are wonderful,” she said.
Dech explained daily ridership on Tri-Rail is about 13,000-14,000 passengers – up by 1,000 passengers a day from a year ago.
“We are very much among the leaders in the country in ridership recovery. We think we have a great story to tell. We put a quality product out there on the rails, and we invite anybody to come back and come out and ride with us,” he said.
On the weekends, Tri-Rail makes for an inexpensive family outing — $5 will get a passenger on board for a memorable train experience with their family.
“We really focus on the customer experience,” Regalado said.
Regalado, who is a self-proclaimed train buff, said she requested to be the Miami-Dade County Commission representative on the Tri-Rail board.
“We’re a commuter rail but what we’re moving towards is connectivity with other transit systems. And now we’re working on doing “first and last mile” options that will get people to and from their final destinations,” she said. Those options include free ride-share services, scooters and bicycles, which are available at Tri-Rail stations for the public to use to get to their homes or jobs.
With the opening of the new downtown station, MiamiCentral, Tri-Rail, the Brightline trains and Miami-Dade Transit – Metrorail, Metromover and Metrobus – converge at a central location.
“It’s going to be a game changer,” Regalado said. “It will allow people who work downtown to commute easily and inexpensively through the tri-county area.
Regalado and Dech also touted the success in transit-oriented development that has emerged along the areas served by transit.
“This has really brought a lot of development to the corridor. This has benefited my district and development that we have with the Metrorail stations where 68% of the people that live there do not own cars and are using the public transit,” Regalado said.
Dech also outlined the progress Tri-Rail is making in modernizing fleet, upgrading stations, and building new pedestrian overpasses.
“We started with some small victories,” Dech said. “Over the next year or so, you know we’re going to rehab the pedestrian bridges, we’re going to rehab the stations, we’re going to continue to work on the trains and the Right of Way including the windows and the cleanliness. It’s always going to keep getting better so we can keep drawing people in because once you ride us once, we want you to come back.”
