Brightline to start passenger-rail service from South Florida to Orlando as early as June

Brightline will extend full rail passenger service from West Palm Beach to Orlando International Airport as soon as June. The announcement came in a report to investors published this month.

The milestone — more than a decade in coming — will make Brightline the fastest train operating in Florida and one of the fastest in the country once it begins cutting through the Treasure and Space coasts at up to 110 mph and then accelerating to 125 mph along its new corridor west to Orlando.

Amtrak’s Acela service in the Northeast, by comparison, reaches speeds up to 150 mph.

Brightline plans "ultimately" to run 32 trains a day between Miami and Orlando, Ben Porritt, its senior vice president of corporate affairs, said in an email.

Stuart bridge:Coast Guard OKs three-week closing of St. Lucie River bridge while Brightline makes repairs

Testing:Brightline to test 110 mph trains again starting Jan. 6 in Martin, St. Lucie counties

Settlement:Indian River County approves settlement with Brightline, ends lawsuit over safety improvements

Construction of the final segment of the $4.5 billion project is more than 90% complete, Porritt said, but “there are a number of factors that will determine the exact date to launch service” such as a “rigorous certification process.”

Reestablishing Henry Flagler's route

Establishing new passenger service through Stuart, Fort Pierce, Vero Beach and Melbourne — as well as smaller communities — will mark the culmination of an effort to bring back a passenger railroad to the train route built by Henry Flagler beginning in the late 1890s.

But when Florida East Coast Industries announced in 2012 it would add a second track to its corridor between Miami and Cocoa and lay new rails along the Beachline Expressway to Orlando, it drew praise in some corners and opposition in others. The Treasure Coast, in particular, was the center of efforts to block the railroad, initially known as All Aboard Florida.

A main point of argument was the lack of stations between West Palm Beach and Orlando.

A decade of planning, resistance and safety concerns

The railroad’s first major milestone came in January 2018 with inauguration of limited service between Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, and extension to Miami in May the same year.

But county governments on the Treasure Coast already had dug in, eventually spending more than $9 million in legal fees, hoping to stave off expansion north.

Starting in 2015, Martin and Indian River counties filed lawsuits against Brightline that ended in separate settlements. In November 2018, Martin County settled its suit in exchange for the promise of an eventual Treasure Coast station, fencing and additional safety improvements, but not before spending $4.1 million in legal fees. Indian River continued its own fight for another three years until settling in June 2021, receiving about $31.6 million in safety improvements at its 32 rail crossings. But not until spending about $5 million in legal fees.

“I don’t think we lost in the long run,” Indian River County Commission Chair Joe Earman said this week. “Since we got the safety upgrades, we got something for it.”

Earman complimented Brightline on the quality of improvements it’s made, but admitted he’s still “not real happy” about the trains coming through the area.

“I’m hoping for the best-case scenario: We have no fatalities, we have no big huge traffic problems. They run smoothly, the cities and the counties run smoothly,” Earman said. “That may be wishful thinking.”

Earman and other Treasure Coast officials have emphasized their concerns about safety in light of at least 88 fatalities involving Brightline trains in South Florida. These deaths have been due to suicides and to motorists, pedestrians and bicyclists failing to heed safety warnings, officials have said.

Most recently, two people were killed Feb. 8 in Delray Beach when their car stopped on a track while the crossing gates were down and it was hit by a Brightline train.

Stuart Mayor Troy McDonald believes such accidents will be inevitable when Brightline trains begin running through the Treasure Coast.

“Sadly, based on their record in Palm Beach County, we’re going to see traffic deaths on the Treasure Coast,” McDonald said. “Safety’s got to be priority one. If we‘re not here to protect our residents, what are we here for?”

Fort Pierce Mayor Linda Hudson plans to discuss with city commissioners in March ways that the city can prepare the community, such as adding warning signs near crossings and distributing information as it’s released, she said.

“I’d like to learn from what happened down there to prevent it from happening here,” Hudson said, referring to South Florida accidents. “I just want people to have a heightened awareness of something that’s going much faster than they’re used to.”

Work still to be done

Before the extension to Central Florida is rolled out, the privately-owned-and-operated company needs to complete renovation of the 98-year-old St. Lucie River railroad bridge in downtown Stuart and obtain final approvals from the Federal Railroad Administration.

Brightline will close the bridge for renovations for three weeks beginning May 1 and plans to reopen it May 29 for normal operations, according to Brightline officials.

Federal Railroad Administration officials on Thursday told the USA Today Network-Florida the agency was unaware of a formal date for Brightline to initiate full service, “but we understand there is a goal to complete the project by summer 2023.”

“An FRA team of multi-disciplined specialists and inspectors have been working with Brightline throughout development and construction to ensure compliance with FRA regulations as well as providing technical assistance and test monitoring,” officials said in an email.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Lina Ruiz is TCPalm's watchdog reporter for Martin County. You can reach her at lina.ruiz@tcpalm.com, on Twitter @Lina_Ruiz48 or at 321-501-3845.