Inaugural day for SunRail on May 1, 2014 was mobbed with 10,000 curious riders who overwhelmed the train’s schedule.
Considering SunRail’s tumultuous first decade, that chaotic and delay-plagued opening — with free admission and a carnival atmosphere at crowded stations — was a success.
The little Central Florida commuter train has faced its share of perils since then, including unfriendly politics, the loss of riders to the pandemic and withering criticism as a waste of tax dollars.
But today, SunRail passengers gush with praise. The Florida Department of Transportation has gotten very good at running the train. Riders say it’s clean, comfortable and welcoming, affordable and reliable, and, for some, offers the most calming minutes of their day.
The dissatisfaction one hears on board trains and in the region at large is that there is not more SunRail: It doesn’t run frequently, late, on weekends or to the airport.
At its tenth birthday, SunRail has arrived at an existential crossroads.
Events and decisions coming soon will have much to say about whether the train just entering adolescence ultimately is an expensive misjudgment or a game changer for how residents, tourists, workers and entertainment seekers travel in Central Florida and even where they live.
SunRail has cost more than $1 billion so far, with $432 million to acquire its track corridor and $627 million to build and equip, and requires tens of millions of dollars annually to operate. Yet, it still carries a paltry few thousand riders daily.
What’s coming for the train is a critical choice for local, state and federal officials: Leave SunRail as is? Fulfill the original intention of connecting the commuter train with the airport? Or launch something far grander and more recently conceived?
That grander option is now on the table: a roughly $4 billion proposition to partner the public and workaday SunRail with the private and glitzy Brightline Trains, which last year drew international attention by starting fast passenger service between Miami, four other South Florida stations and Orlando International Airport.
Working together, SunRail and Brightline would, according to the proposition, give SunRail a link to the airport, provide stations at the Orange County Convention Center, Universal Studios, International Drive and Walt Disney World, and open the way for Brightline to blaze its long-wanted tracks down the middle of Interstate 4 to a Tampa station.
Ridership for SunRail, according to projections by the state transportation department, should in little more than a decade grow tenfold, to 10 million annually.
Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, who among elected and appointed officials has the longest, closest tenure with SunRail, and arguably is its top booster, said the stakes could not be more plain for a region that came of age with and remains beholden to cars and congestion.
“SunRail to the airport and beyond is a must for our community,” Dyer said.
SunRail Takeover
Sunrail’s north-south, 49-mile corridor with 16 stations aligns generally parallel with I-4 from Volusia through Seminole and Orange counties and into Osceola.
A final segment of SunRail’s originally planned route, 12 miles from DeBary to a new station in DeLand, is to open this year.
Each SunRail train normally consists of two coaches propelled by a heavy locomotive that tiptoes through the tight, busy core of Orlando and gallops to nearly 80 mph in rural spaces toward DeBary and Poinciana.
SunRail trains make 20 roundtrips on the 49-mile corridor each weekday, starting before 6 a.m. and ending by about 11 p.m. In contrast to light rail trains in many cities that stop every 10 minutes or so, SunRail trains leave every 30 minutes during rush hour and some midday trains are 90 minutes apart.
Through 2019, SunRail was providing between 6,000 and 7,000 rides daily. By the end of 2020, the first year of the pandemic, the count had slipped to fewer than 2,500 daily. Recovery since then, as with many public transportation systems, has been gradual.
In March, SunRail trains provided an average of 5,294 rides each day. That translates, as commonly assumed, to 2,647 riders going somewhere, such as work, and returning home.
That many riders is about a tenth of 1 percent of Central Florida’s population and 1 percent of I-4 motorists passing through Orlando.
In March, Dyer sat with other local elected officials of SunRail’s commission, which serves as an advisory group to the state Department of Transportation, hearing public comments.
Altamonte Springs resident Tom Connelly lambasted SunRail as a failure costing $60 million annually but not gaining popularity. “I’m telling you, it’s a tragedy. You’ve made a wonderful effort. But the public is telling you ‘thank you, but no thank you’.”
Dyer responded that the 61 miles from DeLand to Poinciana is an essential foundation, or a “spine” for what will grow into a “robust regional system.” It was a vision Dyer bet on heavily that day.
At that meeting, SunRail commission members, on behalf of taxpayers in four counties and several cities, approved a monumental transition: SunRail costs are about to shift from the state to local governments, which was intended from the start.
For the next three years, the state transportation department will continue direct oversight of SunRail train operations, while the SunRail commission is set up within Lynx, the region’s primary public bus operator.
Lynx will provide administrative support, while trains, fare collection and other related functions will continue to be run and maintained by contractors as they are today.
The SunRail commission will pivot from advisory to operational — taking charge of contracts, insurance, risks, performance and potential growth, all with a well settled understanding among members that public transportation fares do little to offset costs.
That’s a lot for the local governments to swallow.
Based on a formula weighing rider numbers and track miles, next year’s estimated costs are $15.3 million for Orange County, $12.2 for Osceola County, $12 million for Seminole County, $5.5 for Volusia County and $20.2 million for Orlando.
The combined local cost is expected to rise from $65.3 million next year to $77.2 million in the fifth year.
Maitland and Winter Park are to contribute as well, in a range of hundreds of thousands of dollars, for station costs. Orange County is talking to them about increasing their shares.
Officials for the local governments had similar responses when asked for reaction to the financial obligations: They have been preparing for it. And, it will be worthwhile, said Winter Park City Manager Randy Knight.
“Winter Park has remained one of the top SunRail destinations since its inception,” Knight said. “A $400,000 [annual] investment into SunRail would be an economic investment in our downtown corridor that helps reduce the parking demand and increase retail and restaurant business.”
For several years, prospects for the takeover agreement appeared fragile, in part because Volusia County has exhibited an agitated love-hate attitude toward passenger rail.
“We have had a lot of give and take, some rough times,” said Jeff Brower, chairman of Volusia County government and of the SunRail commission, speaking in March of the transition plan. “This represents really good work, some compromise.”
Connecting Communities
Touch screens of ticket machines at stations declare: “Connecting Communities.” That may suggest marketing blather. But spending time on SunRail trains reveals the slogan is accurate.
There are plenty of middle-aged riders in collared shirts and office haircuts, pecking at laptops on their way to an Orlando stop.
But there are many others, with a significant diversity of demographics, who pass through the city on the way to jobs, family and, for example, a St. Johns River cruise out of Sanford.
Their stories are compelling, particularly for having found ways to travel the “last mile,” or distance from a station to their destination. They bring pedal bikes, electric scooters, Uber apps on their phones and transfer tickets for Lynx buses.
Brian Evans gets on SunRail in Osceola County and rides to Lake Mary’s station, where he leaves his pickup parked for a short trip to the custom metal fabrication shop he manages. “I could not imagine having to make that drive every day,” Evan said of the slog out of Osceola and on I-4.
“You don’t have to be an accountant to figure out how much you can save riding SunRail and not driving,” said Marie Vezensky, an accountant who rides to work several times a week from Kissimmee to Sanford and Ubers the last mile.
A SunRail commission member, Seminole County Commissioner Amy Lockhart, urged colleagues during a meeting in April to consider increasing fares, which top out at $5 for a trip from DeBary to Poinciana.
In doing so, the commission might check in with Paula Anderson, who leaves her Ocoee home early each weekday, walking to catch a Lynx bus to Orlando’s Central Station, where she takes SunRail to Longwood, where she catches another Lynx bus, and then walks to her home health care job.
The accumulated fares already take a big chunk of her hard-earned income. “Social Security is not enough,” Anderson said. “I have to work.”
Sunshine Corridor
Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings said SunRail shows “great potential” at 10 years old.
It also showcases the region’s dilemma: growing traffic congestion coupled with too little funding for solutions, including buses and trains, he said.
“SunRail needs to expand, it needs to grow,” Demings said, adding that financing to do that remains “elusive.”
SunRail’s history, including well before it started up, is steeped with opposition from lawmakers, lawyers, organized labor and even Polk County, which feared that SunRail would cause a disruptive rerouting of freight trains.
But the commuter rail system drew critical support at the right moments, including from U.S. Rep. John Mica, a Central Florida Republican, who spent years lining up funding.
Still, SunRail has never had the depth and breadth of support it has today.
The proposal to extend SunRail, in a partnership with Brightline, to the airport and the tourism corridor was branded two years ago as the Sunshine Corridor.
Brightline is poised to contribute significantly, and so is Universal Studios. Walt Disney World, an early collaborator, was silent during rough relations with Gov. Ron DeSantis and is now back.
Responding to a request for comment, Disney provided a statement: “We have long been open to discussions around the proposed SunRail expansion to Disney Springs and have been engaged with state and community leaders on the topic.”
While not mentioned, community leaders engaged by Disney include its competitor, Universal Studios, according to Dyer, who thinks the two tourism giants have mutual interest in the Sunshine Corridor making it possible to attract visitors from South Florida, and riders to and from Orlando’s airport and Tampa Bay.
Visitors aside, the airport and tourism corridor host tens of thousands of jobs. Some local leaders call the Sunshine Corridor the “jobs train.”
“The Sunshine Corridor is the right next step for our region’s intracity public transportation plan,” Universal said in a statement to the Orlando Sentinel. “It will connect residents to their jobs and the airport, serving more than 125,000 workers and millions of visitors.”
Dyer said the costs for track, stations and trains are doable.
Assuming a $4 billion price tag, and the typical funding formula, the feds would pay $2 billion, the state $1 billion and local sources the final $1 billion.
Local sources, Dyer said, would include counties, cities, Brightline, Disney, Universal and potentially others. “It’s going to take the same dogged determination to get it done that it took to get the first 61 miles,” he said.
One SunRail rider, Pierre Stevens, a father of three kids and living in west downtown Orlando, was surprised to hear the train he relies on is a decade old already. And it is still not connected with the airport, he noted, perplexed by that.
Stevens is a block mason, riding SunRail like a pro for jobs as far as Sanford and Kissimmee. As he sat near uniformed nurses, office types, students and other passengers, the only clue to his livelihood was a bit of mortar smudge on his boots and a zipped bag of trowels.
“I wonder what SunRail will be like in the next 10 years,” Stevens said.
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