Tri-Rail, Miami’s cheapest train option, is coming to Downtown this month

According to local press reports, the Tri-Rail company reported that its trains would arrive in downtown Miami in late January, marking the beginning of urban transit service planned for 2016.

Tri-Rail, the cheaper, tax-subsidized alternative to Brightline trains on the I-95 corridor, finally announced this weekend that its Miami station will open on Saturday, January 13.

On that day, Tri-Rail trains will begin running from shared space at Brightline’s downtown complex to regular Tri-Rail stops at the existing transit station in Hialeah, which is already served by Tri-Rail and Metrorail.

,“It finally became a reality,” said Raquel Regalado, a Miami-Dade County commissioner and Tri-Rail board member who helped oust the entity’s previous director over delays in Miami service. “We have overcome many obstacles,” he said.

Tri-Rail, the cheapest train option in Miami

According to officials, several setbacks delayed the launch, including the discovery in 2021 that the platform built at the downtown station for Tri-Rail was slightly wide for Brightline Tri-Rail trains.

Two months later, then-Tri-Rail chief Steven Abrams announced his resignation, citing disagreements with Regalado and other board members.

Although Metrorail trains already serve the same route, Tri-Rail’s Downtown Link will be the first with express service. However, commuters will have to wait for the direct route from West Palm Beach to Miami that Tri-Rail proposed when the project began.

Tri-Rail, funded by a combination of federal, state and local funds and managed by the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority, is currently terminating its Miami-Dade service south of Hialeah station at Miami International Airport (MINE).