Brightline expands service to Orlando: So, what now?
The long-awaited passenger service finally delivers, but who is behind it, and what else is in stock for the company?
September 22nd is World Car-Free Day, and it couldn’t be a better fitting date to kick off Brightline’s largest rail line thus far. After several years of development, the private rail company is finally opening the long-awaited extension northward from West Palm Beach. From here on out, Florida travelers will be able to travel comfortably and quickly from Miami to Orlando. With fragments of the line being capable of facilitating trains moving at 125 mph, or 200 kph, it’s no wonder that the project has gathered great interest among both transit nerds and everyday Floridians, skeptical of the slow, outdated (not unlike the rest of the country) transit network the state has been providing until now.
Brightline’s transformation of U.S. passenger rail
Brightline, started as All Aboard Florida in 2012, is a Miami-based private rail firm quickly made known around Southern Florida thanks to its speedy development of an alternative inter-urban service running from downtown Miami to West Palm Beach. The original line was constructed in 4 years, and launched in 2018. By laying down tracks parallel to major urban expressways, the line rolled out relatively quickly, and has since become an attractive competitor to South Florida’s Regional Transportation Authority’s Tri-Rail service. Soon after, in 2019, Brightline broke ground on the bulkier chunk of their original plan of connecting Miami with Orlando, and after another 4 years of cutting through south-eastern Florida’s coastal swamps, that brings us to today’s news.
Furthermore, Brightline has perhaps gained greatest notoriety for its Los Angeles-Las Vegas high speed rail project, wishfully projected to launch in 2027. Brightline West, as this ambitious endeavor is dubbed, is expected to connect greater Las Vegas to Rancho Cucamonga in California with speeds of up to 180 mph (290 kph). The project has seen struggles in obtaining necessary federal grant funds to start construction, and has faced criticism over issues with connectivity at both termini, which puts the 2027 completion date further into question. So, let’s go back to the East, where we can dive into what currently exists of Brightline’s transformation of rail transit in the US.
Brightline’s newest station, the Orlando terminus at the city’s international airport.
Brightline’s vision
Brightline promises to provide a smooth and comfortable experience, shown above - pricy premium class seats, $298 a pop for a round trip between Miami and Orlando.
First of all, it’s important to stress that Brightline is a private rail company. After years of public rail projects being bogged down by political compromises, most notoriously perhaps, California High Speed Rail, still not having laid down a single piece of track after 15 years, private initiative came in to deliver a speedier process of rail development between American cities. In 2018, Brightline laid down the first passenger rail lines in over a century. The firm’s vision for its projects revolves around encouraging real estate development around its stations and corridors, which has seen success, as demand grew around each of the existing stations along the route.
Speaking of stations, with the Orlando expansion, the line now has a total of 6, running from Orlando International Airport’s Terminal C to Miami Central, right next to the city’s downtown core. The provision of a future stop in Cocoa has been highly anticipated within Brevard County, as has a stop on the Treasure Coast in either St. Lucie or Martin County, and other urban centers, like Melbourne, Vero Beach, and Titusville along the route are also very much interested in joining in on the line in the future.
Current stations along with the planned Tampa expansion from Brightline’s website.
From an urbanist perspective, the idea of attracting dense real estate development around rail transit surely sounds great, but how do the existing stations fit into their respective urban environments? The main three stations on the 2018-launched portion of the route, West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale, and Miami all sit within the downtown cores of their respective cities, and in the case of the first two, the stations are much more well-connected and accessible than their Tri-Rail counterparts, whereas Miami’s station is right next to the previously existing Historic Overtown stop. Orlando’s terminus, being located in an off-center terminal within the city’s airport isn’t perfect, but it does provide passengers with existing connections between the city and the airport. Boca Raton and Aventura stations, both opened in December of last year are less central, but nevertheless both have decent connections to their local public transit services, and parking infrastructure. For what it’s worth, it’s a good start, and with greater development around each of the stations, it’s expected that all of them become transit hubs for their respective areas.
The train station visible on the mid-left of the map is operated by Brightline, and is located dab in the middle of downtown West Palm Beach.
So, what now?
Future plans for Brightline in Florida include a westward Tampa extension, and potentially a northward line all the way to Jacksonville, with the aim of connecting all of Florida’s main urban centers. Brightline West is expected to bump the company’s scope outside of the Sunshine State, and depending on how the next years play out for the network, we might start seeing other Brightline projects starting to pop up across the country. I do think Brightline’s vision is exciting and certainly beneficial for the conversation around high speed rail in the U.S., but we must keep in mind that depending on access to funding, more of the numerous lawsuits that the company has had to face in the past, these projects are going to face challenges, delays, cutbacks, and setbacks. Furthermore, as we’ve seen during the COVID-19 era, service was completely terminated, which in general is not a good precedent for mass transit, but entirely understandable given the private ownership of the network, which then brings up conversations about whether it’s right for cities to depend on private capital to deliver functional transit.
I will gladly return to Brightline’s progress in transforming Florida’s passenger rail in the future, and for now I’m cautiously optimistic about what’s been achieved so far. This was a pretty simple and, admittedly, positive-leaning overview of the company’s output, and I’d like to recommend a different perspective on the whole thing by UrbanDox on YouTube, as their video goes into detail with what may go wrong with Brightline’s ambition.
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