Tri-Rail looks at flat $5 fares as it kills rideshare partnerships

Tri-Rail’s oversight board is to vote next month on eliminating a complex six-zone fare system and simply charging $5 a ride as it shuffles programs in the face of a 2027 shutdown threat if it can’t generate more cash.

The publicly operated commuter railroad serving three counties last month killed a first- and last-mile partnership with ridesharing services and is trying to figure out how to cash in better at the ticket window, Miami-Dade Commissioner Raquel Regaldo, who sits on the system’s board, told the Transportation Planning Organization last week.

“After a long study over our fares,” she said, Tri-Rail will create a flat fee and eliminate zones.

“We currently have a flat fee on the weekend that’s been very popular,” she said. “It’s a $5 fee where you get to ride the train all weekend, and it’s been a great opportunity for people who haven’t used Tri-Rail to try rail, and the zones are very complex. When we did an analysis, we found that most people were buying a lower-priced ticket and riding several zones, so we’re looking at potentially a $5 ticket for all the zones, from Miami Central to potentially Palm Beach.”

“It’s five bucks and all you can ride, right?” said Commissioner Juan Carlos Bermudez in an aside comment.

There could be a carve-out for express trains that roll from Palm Beach into downtown Miami with few stops, Ms. Regalado said. “We could have for the express trains a different price, but it would be a set fee.”

In October the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority, which operates Tri-Rail, decided to shut down a pilot program to provide vouchers to passengers riding Uber, Lyft and taxis on the first and last miles to and from the rail line.

“It was costing us more than the ridership it was bringing us,” Mr. Regaldo said. “We decided to ask FDOT (the Florida Department of Transportation) to allow us to use that money for capital projects instead of the first and last mile.”

One capital project would be better fare collection for the rail line, she said.

Operators are scrambling to find ways to keep Tri-Rail going after FDOT this year redefined what it considers statutory minimum for funding Tri-Rail, reducing from $42.1 million to $15 million the understood minimum, Executive Director David Dech explained to a July 25 workshop. If no changes are made, he said, the budget cut has led Tri-Rail’s lifeline to end in July 2027.

“I think this is an existential threat, this is real,” he said. “It was kind of a double whammy. We’re asking for money, and then the amount of money the counties are able to bring in has been reduced.”

“We have multiple sources of funding,” Mr. Dech said. “Our primary source of funding was the State of Florida. That has been greatly reduced, but we get funding from the State of Florida. We have some federal funds that are based on ridership. We have funding from the counties. We have a little bit of funding from the highway administration, and then, of course, our fare revenue.”

In last week’s meeting, the Transportation Planning Organization unanimously approved a resolution by Miami-Dade Commissioner Eileen Higgins asking the legislature “to appropriate funding for the Florida Rail Enterprise Program to fund the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority’s Tri-Rail operations to maintain Tri-Rail’s level of service and urging the Florida Department of Transportation” to include those funds in its five-year work programs.

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