Northeast Corridor Rapid Transit Project | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Status | In planning | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Locale | Greater Miami | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Termini | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stations | 7 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Service | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Type | Commuter rail | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Operator(s) | Brightline Florida East Coast Railway | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
History | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Planned opening | 2032 (estimate) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Technical | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Character | At-grade | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Track gauge | 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Operating speed | 79 mph (130 km/h) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Northeast Corridor Rapid Transit Project is a planned commuter rail service in Miami-Dade County, Florida. The line is planned to extend from MiamiCentral to the Aventura station along the existing Florida East Coast Railway (FEC) tracks. It will have seven stations for the service in Miami-Dade, with both of the terminal stations having access to Brightline. [1] [2] Service could begin as soon as 2032. [3] Tri-Rail is a potential operator of the service. [4] A future extension into Broward and Palm Beach County is under study. [5]
Prior to Brightline, a similar project was known as the Coastal Link in the 2010s with Tri-Rail as the prospective operator.
In 2020, it was revealed that Brightline was planning a commuter rail service to complement their existing intercity service. Referred to as the Northeast Corridor, [6] trains would run between MiamiCentral and Aventura with five stations between. [6] Brightline and the Miami-Dade County Commission agreed to access fees in November 2020. [7] The estimated cost for full buildout of the line was $325 million in 2021. [6] Operations were expected to start as early as 2024. [8] By 2023, station locations had been identified and service frequencies for trains were expected to be every 30 to 60 minutes. [9] The price of the project had increased to $588,663,000. [10] As of 2024, the project now has an estimated cost of $927,300,000, with service starting as soon as 2032, as the result of the Federal Transit Administration indicating to "slow down" the pace of the project. [11]
Location | Station | Connections |
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Ojus | ‹See TfM› Aventura |
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North Miami Beach | FIU/Biscayne NE 151st St | |
North Miami | North Miami NE 123rd St | |
Miami | NE 61st St Little Haiti | |
NE 39th St Design District | ||
NE 27th St Wynwood | ||
MiamiCentral |
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Aventura is a planned suburban city in northeastern Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States, 15 miles (24 km) north of Miami and part of the Miami metropolitan area. The city is especially known for Aventura Mall, the third largest mall in the United States by total square feet of retail space and the largest mall in Florida.
Miami-Dade Transit (MDT) is the primary public transit authority of Miami, Florida and the greater Miami-Dade County area. It is the largest transit system in Florida and the 15th-largest transit system in the United States. As of 2023, the system has 80,168,700 rides per year, or about 266,600 per weekday in the third quarter of 2024. MDT operates the Metrobus with their paratransit STS systems run by LSF. MDT also operates two rail transit systems: Metrorail and Metromover.
Tri-Rail is a commuter rail service linking Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach in Florida, United States. The Tri prefix in the name refers to the three counties served by the railroad: Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade. Tri-Rail is managed by the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority (SFRTA) along CSX Transportation's former Miami Subdivision; the line is now wholly owned by the Florida DOT. The 80.0-mile-long (128.7 km) system has 19 stations along the Southeast Florida coast, and connects directly to Amtrak at numerous stations, to Metrorail at the Metrorail Transfer station, Miami Airport station, and MiamiCentral, and to Brightline at MiamiCentral.
Metromover is a free to ride automated people mover system operated by Miami-Dade Transit in Miami, Florida, United States. Metromover serves the Downtown Miami, Brickell, Park West and Arts & Entertainment District neighborhoods. Metromover connects directly with Metrorail at Government Center and Brickell stations. It also connects to Metrobus with dedicated bus loops at Government Center and Adrienne Arsht Center station. It originally began service to the Downtown/Inner Loop on April 17, 1986, and was later expanded with the Omni and Brickell Loop extensions on May 26, 1994.
Government Center station is an intermodal transit hub in the Government Center district of Downtown Miami, Florida. It is operated by Miami-Dade Transit and serves as a transfer station for the Metrorail and Metromover rapid transit systems and as a bus station for Metrobus, Paratransit, and Broward County Transit buses. MiamiCentral is directly connected via a pedestrian bridge over NW 3rd Street. The station is located near the intersection of Northwest First Street and First Avenue, a part of the Stephen P. Clark Government Center Building. It opened to service May 20, 1984, next to the site of a former FEC railway station which is now MiamiCentral.
Wilkie D. Ferguson Jr. is a Metromover station in Downtown, Miami, Florida.
South Florida Regional Transportation Authority (SFRTA), based in Pompano Beach, Florida, provides public transport services in Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach Counties. The organization was created on July 1, 2003, by the Florida Legislature and enacted by the Florida Department of Transportation. Replacing the pre-existing Tri-County Commuter Rail Authority, the goal of incorporation was to expand cooperation between the Tri-Rail commuter rail service and the existing county public transport authorities: Broward County Transit, Miami-Dade Transit, and Palm Tran. Tri-Rail is solely operated by the SFRTA.
Boca Raton is a Tri-Rail commuter rail station in Boca Raton, Florida. The station is located at Yamato Road, just east of Congress Avenue and west of I-95. Originally opened January 9, 1989, the station was moved and rebuilt following Hurricane Wilma, reopening to service November 4, 2005. The station is the southernmost Tri-Rail station in Palm Beach County, and offers parking. By 2014, it was considered the busiest station in the system with 1,600 riders a day, surpassing the Tri-Rail and Metrorail transfer station in Miami-Dade County. For this reason, a second Boca Raton Tri-Rail station at Glades Road has been long considered.
Miami Intermodal Center (MIC) is an intermodal rapid transit, commuter rail, intercity rail, local bus, and intercity bus transportation hub in Miami-Dade County, Florida, just outside the Miami city limits near the Grapeland Heights neighborhood. The facility was constructed by the Florida Department of Transportation and is owned by the Greater Miami Expressway Agency.
Metrorail is a rapid transit system in Miami and Miami-Dade County in the U.S. state of Florida. Metrorail is operated by Miami-Dade Transit (MDT), a departmental agency of Miami-Dade County. Opened in 1984, it is Florida's only rapid transit metro system, and is currently composed of two lines of 23 stations on 24.4 miles (39.3 km) of standard gauge track. Metrorail serves the urban core of Miami, connecting Miami International Airport, the Health District, Downtown Miami, and Brickell with the northern developed neighborhoods of Hialeah and Medley to the northwest, and to suburban The Roads, Coconut Grove, Coral Gables, and South Miami, ending at urban Dadeland in Kendall. Metrorail connects to the Metromover in Downtown, which provides metro service to the entirety of Downtown and Brickell. Additionally, it connects to South Florida's commuter rail system at Tri-Rail station, as well as Metrobus routes at all stations. In 2023, the system had 13,439,300 rides, and about 49,300 per day in the third quarter of 2024.
Transportation in Florida includes a variety of options, including Interstate Highways, U.S. Highways, and Florida State Roads; Amtrak and commuter rail services; airports, public transportation, and sea ports, in a number of the state's counties and regions.
SunRail is a commuter rail system in the Greater Orlando, Florida, area. Services began on May 1, 2014. The system comprises 17 stations along a former CSX Transportation line connecting Volusia County and Osceola County through Downtown Orlando. The SunRail system is financed by the state and federal governments and the counties it serves. SunRail is Florida's second commuter rail system after South Florida's Tri-Rail.
The Miami metropolitan area composed of the three counties of Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach, also known collectively as South Florida, is home to a wide variety of public and private transportation systems.
Brightline is an intercity rail route in the United States that runs between Miami and Orlando, Florida. Part of the route runs on track owned and shared by the Florida East Coast Railway.
The Seaboard–All Florida Railway was a subsidiary of the Seaboard Air Line Railroad that oversaw two major extensions of the system in the early 1920s to southern Florida on each coast during the land boom. One line extended the Seaboard's tracks on the east coast from West Palm Beach down to Fort Lauderdale and Miami, while the other extension on the west coast extended the tracks from Fort Ogden south to Fort Myers and Naples, with branches from Fort Myers to LaBelle and Punta Rassa. These two extensions were heavily championed by Seaboard president S. Davies Warfield, and were constructed by Foley Brothers railroad contractors. Both extensions also allowed the Seaboard to better compete with the Florida East Coast Railway and the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, who already served the lower east and west coasts of Florida respectively.
The Metrobus network provides bus service throughout Miami-Dade County 365 days a year, operated by Miami-Dade Transit. It consists of about 79 routes and 771 buses, which connect most points in the county and part of southern Broward County as well. As of 2023, the system has 58,282,300 rides per year, or about 191,200 per day in the third quarter of 2024.
MiamiCentral is a train station in Miami, Florida. Located in Downtown Miami, the station provides access to the Brightline inter-city rail service and the Tri-Rail commuter rail service. The station is part of a 9-acre (3.6 ha) mixed-use complex, which includes 3 million square feet (280,000 m2) of residential, office, commercial, and retail development.
Aventura station is a Brightline station in Ojus, Florida. It is located on West Dixie Highway, west of the Aventura Mall and the city of Aventura. The station is built on land purchased by Brightline and donated to Miami-Dade County, which funded a portion of the construction with $76 million. A groundbreaking ceremony was held September 3, 2020. Prior to Brightline's ongoing suspension of service due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the station had been expected to open in the fall of 2021. A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held on December 20, 2022. Despite a scheduled opening date of December 21, 2022, passenger service did not begin until a few days later, on December 24, 2022, due to some last-minute finishing touches to the station.