Thought everyone here would be interested in the happenings down south. Today (January 9th) is the 25th anniversary for Tri-Rail, and the commuter rail agency just announced that they carried a record amount of passengers in 2013.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/fl-tri-rail-ridership-record-20140107,0,4194433.story
QuoteTri-Rail broke a ridership record in 2013.
Records show 4,350,782 trips were taken on the commuter train last year, up from 4.3 million in 2008 when gas prices were at their highest.
Officials credit the bump in ridership to the recovering economy and increased employment as well as more frequent service on the weekends. The commuter train celebrates its 25th anniversary on Thursday, having carried 70 million passengers since it began in 1989.
I believe improved on-time performance, and increased service on the weekends (up to hourly from every two hours) helped. I remember during the early 2000's that trains frequently ran 40-60 minutes late. Now there are quite a few occasions where trains run a few minutes early!
Hopefully Jacksonville wakes up to the success that south Florida, and soon Orlando, is having when it comes to frequent and reliable rail service.
It's good to see Tri-Rail continuing to increase in popularity. Hopefully, they'll be successful at getting a second line on the FEC tracks.
I think has something has been worked out with FEC to permit Amtrak to use the tracks again. I was not aware tri-rail was looking for additional track use.
Last time I heard, Tri-Rail was going to operate a second north/south line. Being on the FEC, it would be a lot more popular since those tracks run through the heart of most South Florida cities. I believe they, along with Amtrak, will be piggybacking off track improvements for AAF to save money.
Lakelander - I just looked back at an article I read in November. Apparently, South Florida got a tiger grant to rehab some old connector rails in West Palm Beach between the FEC rail line and Tri-rail.
The agreement will allow Tri-rail to use the FEC tracks to extend their service to Jupiter. FEC will be able to shift some freight traffic to Tri-rail which will help with port congestion and to transfer freight to the new inland Lake Okechobee port facility.
The SFRTA is looking to establish and operate a whole new coastal line on the FEC tracks called Coastal Link. So, it appears almost everyone in the state ... Miami, Orlando and Tampa are making advanced plans for rail, LRT and streetcars but us. (smh)
http://www.tri-railcoastallink.com/