Tri-Rail Expanding to Downtown Miami

South Florida Regional Transportation Authority (SFRTA) Tri-Rail shuttle trains will serve MiamiCentral Station beginning Saturday, Jan. 13, 2024.

The new service, named Downtown Miami Link (DTML), will be introduced as a train-to-train transfer at the Metrorail Transfer Station in Hialeah, where a shuttle train will operate of the South Florida Rail Corridor (SFRC) into the Florida East Coast (FEC) Railway for direct service to MiamiCentral and back. Service will “soft launch” on Jan. 13 for two weeks starting with six round trips, with more trains incrementally added to the schedule until it reaches 13 round trips. Tri-Rail Customer Experience Specialists will be staffed to work MiamiCentral upon the start of the new service to assist passengers

“DTML has been a coordinated effort with multiple partners from the region who aimed at providing passenger rail service between the South Florida Rail Corridor where Tri-Rail currently operates and the FEC, which owns the tracks that connect into Downtown Miami,” SFRTA said. “Several key partners supported and advocated for this effort, which leveraged the infrastructure established by the introduction of Brightline with the region’s investment and support of the Tri-Rail system.

“Among some of these important players are the funding partners that provided a local investment of $70 million for construction costs to accommodate Tri-Rail trains in MiamiCentral, which include Bayfront Management Trust, City of Miami, Citizen’s Independent Management Trust, Miami-Dade County, Miami Downtown Development Authority, Omni Community Redevelopment Agency and Southeast Overtown/Park West Community Redevelopment Agency.”

“The day has finally arrived when the public can plan their direct trips in and out of Downtown Miami onboard Tri-Rail trains,” said Miami-Dade Commissioner Raquel Regalado, SFRTA Governing Board Member. “It has been years of hard work and coordination with many supporting partners throughout the region, so we celebrate this news with them, our supporters and mostly our loyal passengers. We have worked through many challenges, which only makes the accomplishment of this major service enhancement for the public that much sweeter. The SFRTA Governing Board was ready to elevate the sense of urgency to get this project completed this past year that ultimately helped get it to the finish line.”