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Transportation
Making Tracks
Two pending deals between the state and CSX will reshape freight and commuter transportation in central Florida. Did everybody get a good deal?
Fourteen years ago, the Virginia Railway Express in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., began using CSX tracks for part of its system. Today, more than 25 cities, including Charlotte, Denver, Minneapolis and Austin, are planning or discussing commuter rail systems, many using existing rail tracks, according the American Public Transportation Association.
 All aboard: A new deal between the state and CSX may extend south Florida's Tri-Rail system to Homestead. |
Next Stop, South Florida...
Commuter rail in south Florida, from Palm Beach County to Miami International Airport, has been a reality for 17 years. In 1988, the Florida Department of Transportation purchased 67 miles of CSX rail tracks from West Palm Beach to Miami, with CSX retaining freight rights. When Tri-Rail started service in 1989, it was the first new commuter line in more than two decades.
Tri-Rail later expanded to 81 miles, and now a new deal between FDOT and CSX may extend the service on CSX's tracks from Miami International to Homestead. "I don't know if they envision a lease or an outright sale," says Gary Sease, spokesman for CSX.
The agreement, if finalized, would also give FDOT and the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority more control over dispatch and maintenance operations for the tracks.
...with Tampa Bay on Hold
"It's hard to say if there is available capacity for commuter rail in Tampa," says CSX's Sease. CSX's freight operations in the Tampa Bay area revolve around the phosphate industry in what's known as Bone Valley. But Sease says that people interested in commuter rail in the Tampa Bay area have taken notice of the central Florida commuter rail deal. "We have a major, major transaction ongoing. We simply cannot accept any further discussions right now. That's what we've told the folks in Tampa Bay," says Sease.
