Tri-Rail 2

"Tri-Rail 2 Would Help Bring all of South Florida Together" by v. johns, 1/3/09, 1:20 AM

I'm reading in Thursday's Palm Beach Post about Tri-Rail's record 2008 ridership of 4.3 million people compared with 3.5 million in 2007... Not only is Tri-Rail the second fastest-growing commuter rail system in the nation behind Albuquerque, New Mexico's Rail Runner Express, according to spokeswoman Bonnie Arnold, an estimated 64 percent of Tri-Rail's ridership own automobiles. One rider questioned by The Post, who owns an SUV, said that even though gas is much lower than this past summer, she continues to ride to save money and work on her laptop.

What I want to know, that I haven't researched yet, is that with gas prices so low, will ridership remain steady or will riders go back to their pre-gas bubble ways? I don't want to speculate, but I'm certainly hoping that people within range of the commuter rail system will continue to conserve energy and restrict their driving by supporting the train system they are fortunate enough to have in that part of our region.

In the meantime, Indian River, Martin, and St. Lucie counties continue to languish in the area of public transportation. Though we currently lack the dense population, here on the Treasure Coast, needed to support full mass transit outfits for each individual county, our status as bedroom communities of the West Palm Beach area, with thousands of our residents clogging up the roads heading south for work every morning, justifies our need for expansion. But the type of mass transit I'm interested in, for the time being, is lighter systems designed to plug into the main terminals and hubs of our more populous neighbors to the south.

In the spring, there was talk of building a "grand central station" in West Palm Beach that would switch trains from CSX to FEC tracks allowing them to run further north (See: "Grand Tropical Station" on this blog). What I have in mind, with regards to this issue, is stopping the trains at that station, if it is built, and running a different set of light rail trains along the FEC tracks through downtown Stuart, Jensen Beach, Port St. Lucie, Ft. Pierce, Vero Beach and Sebastian with a spinoff brand name of "Tri-Rail II."

I say "Tri-Rail II" ("the T-2 train") because once the train system extends northward, the addition of other counties would render obsolete the "Tri" part of the "Tri-Rail" brand. Naming the new trains with "Tri-Rail II" branding, yet allowing either set of trains to be used in either part of the region, would signify the expansion of an established system that recognizes the boundaries of the larger region. The only other logical thing to do would be to rename the system entirely. The initials of the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority, "S.F.R.T.A." would probably suffice, but would not be as good for marketing as the "Tri-Rail" brand name.

My suggestion of creating a "Tri-Rail II" train system for the Treasure Coast stems from the idea of an expandable regional train system with the capability of reaching smaller, less populous areas of our region, as efficiently as possible with shuttles, buses or park-and-ride stations to compliment the train system. Unlike the "population-support" model, the "regional-access" model assumes eventual density and is more concerned with overall continuity of service provision. Although Indian River, St. Lucie and Martin don't have the population densities to support full-throttle mass transit systems for each individual county, our economic ties to our neighbors to the south, in the form of thousands of people commuting further south to work, as well as the newly recognized geographic boundaries of the region, justifies the need to provide a system that will serve our needs on a regional level. Thus, the aim in creating "Tri-Rail II", initially, would be to connect the less populous Treasure Coast with the rest of South Florida. As ridership grows and as the Treasure Coast grows, further provisions would be made within our sub-region to provide more detailed connections on the county level for locals, travelers and commuters alike...