The Tri-Rail funding situation

It's been a while since I've talked about Tri-Rail, south Florida's main and only commuter rail. Recently, despite growing ridership, Tri-Rail announced that it has numerous financial challenges due to insignificant amounts of funding (they only received 15 million from the state and were supposed to get 42 million) and that they may not be able to operate through mid-2027.

(Photo: Tri-Rail)

If Tri-Rail were to go bankrupt, then traffic in South Florida along the I-95 corridor would take a huge toll. They said that if all the ridership from Tri-Rail were to go onto the I-95, it would add "a lanes worth of traffic to the I-95 everyday". That's huge for an already congested highway, and forget about travelling during the holidays.

While Tri-Rail’s board is confident they’ll be able to solve the funding issues, time is running out to secure funding and essentially save the agency, which has currently had little time left. With time running out, now is the time to find a solution. Tri-Rail carries 4.4 million passengers annually, and it would be devastating to see it gone.

(Photo: David Larsen)