Under this new plan, one-way tickets to Miami on this route are $17.50. It would cost $35 a day to take the train in both directions. It will only stop at Boca Raton, Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood Airport, and the transfer station before reaching MiamiCentral. The express train will leave the West Palm Beach Station at 6:30 a.m. and get to MiamiCentral at 8:05 a.m. In the afternoons, the express train will leave Miami at 5:35 p.m.
A new way to get from West Palm Beach to the Magic City kicked off Monday morning.
Tri Rail is launching their pilot program for an express route to Miami, eliminating more than 10 stops along the way.
I asked Tri Rail leaders why theyre deciding to launch this now and if this has anything to do with Brightline rising their prices for their tickets.
Their answer was yes.
Brightline made the decision to get rid of their train passes, effective June 1.
They say it has become increasingly difficult to accommodate all guests as peak trains are reaching capacity, according to their website.
Before, you could buy 40 one way tickets for $400. Now, After their price increase and changes that started this month, those same 40 tickets would cost you $1,400.
Brightline says they worked with Tri Rail to alleviate this.
Under this new plan, one-way tickets to Miami on this route are $17.50. It would cost $35 a day to take the train in both directions.
I asked the executive director of South Florida Regional Transportation Authority, which runs Tri Rail how that relationship worked.
We went through our schedule to see if we could actually squeeze it in. We saw that we could, and then we went to the board for the budget for it, said David Dech SFRTAs executive director. Brightline recognized that there were going to be some people that were upset with the pricing and reached out to see if there was something we could do to help everybody.
Its a one-seat ride, meaning passengers wont have to transfer.
The express train will leave the West Palm Beach Station on Tamarind Avenue and Clematis Street at 6:30 a.m. each weekday and get to MiamiCentral at 8:05 a.m.
In the afternoons, the express train will leave Miami at 5:35 p.m.
Tri Rail says this will cut the drive time between West palm beach and Miami by more than 30 minutes.
The new express route also eliminates a bunch of stops.
It will only stop at Boca Raton, Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood Airport, and the transfer station before reaching MiamiCentral.
The stops that were kept were chosen strategically, according to Tri Rail.
WPTV about more trains becoming available for this route. Dech says theyll use all the information they get from the pilot to decide if they can add more trains to this route.
Later on in the year we’ll be able to evaluate our business model in general,” said Dech. “I don’t have the funding or the equipment to just put on a whole bunch of additional express trains. We do share this line with Amtrak, we share this line with CSX. We don’t have a blank check to go out and kind of do whatever we want. But this is a good opportunity to see if there really is a demand.