Tri-Rail will be expanding its service into the MiamiCentral Station, beginning Jan. 13.
“The day has finally arrived when the public can plan their direct trips in and out of downtown Miami onboard Tri-Rail trains,” said Miami-Dade Commissioner and South Florida Regional Transportation Authority (SFRTA) Governing Board Member Raquel Regalado. “It has been years of hard work and coordination with many supporting partners throughout the region, so we celebrate this news with them, our supporters and, mostly, our loyal passengers.”
The new service will be introduced as a train-to-train transfer at the Metrorail Transfer Station in Hialeah Fla., where a shuttle train will spur out of the South Florida Rail Corridor (SFRC) into the Florida East Coast (FEC) Railway for a direct service to MiamiCentral and back. The service will soft launch on Jan. 13 for two weeks, starting with six trains going in and six trains out of MiamiCentral, with more trains incrementally added to the schedule before having the full schedule consisting of 26 weekday trains, 13 in and out of MiamiCentral.
“We have worked through many challenges which only makes the accomplishment of this major service enhancement for the public that much sweeter,” Regalado said. “The SFRTA Governing Board was ready to elevate the sense of urgency to get this project completed this past year that ultimately helped get it to the finish line.”
The Downtown Miami Link Project (DTML) has been a coordinated effort with multiple partners from the region, who aimed at providing passenger rail service between the SFRC, where Tri-Rail currently operates, and the FEC, which owns the tracks that connect into downtown Miami. Several key partners supported and advocated for this effort, which leveraged the infrastructure established by the introduction of Brightline with the region's investment and support of the Tri-Rail system.
The funding partners that provided a local investment of $70 million for construction costs to accommodate Tri-Rail trains in MiamiCentral include:
- Bayfront Management Trust
- City of Miami
- Citizen’s Independent Management Trust
- Miami-Dade County
- Miami Downtown Development Authority
- Omni Community Redevelopment Agency
- Southeast Overtown/Park West Community Redevelopment Agency
The new connecting service will be available seven days a week, including holidays. Tri-Rail Customer Experience Specialists will be staffed to work MiamiCentral upon the start of the new service to assist passengers with their travels.
