More hurdles in long drive to get Amtrak to the airport
The years-long struggle to get long-distance Amtrak trains into its station completed in 2016 at the Miami Intermodal Center servicing Miami International Airport is still stalled in efforts to gain access to the building and getting track to turn trains around so they can go back north.
Also, the Florida Department of Transportation is still working to amend the 1997 operating agreement with Amtrak to account for service south of the Hialeah station, Nilia Cartaya, the department’s modal development administrator, said last week. Multiple offices of the transportation department are working to unravel problems in doing that.
Also needed, Ms. Cartaya told the Citizens’ Independent Transportation Trust, is an agreement with the Miami-Dade Aviation Department and the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority, which runs Tri-Rail commuter trains, for an agreement on maintenance of the common areas of the intermodal transportation hub.
The reason more track area is needed for the Amtrak trains, she said, is that they must turn around, unlike the Tri-Rail trains running into the hub that operate on a push-pull system where the train engine is not shifted from one end to the other.
One of the first problems to surface in getting Amtrak to serve the airport was that trains couldn’t enter the station because they were too long and disrupted traffic at the east side of the station.
The state transportation department subsequently spent $5.6 million to reconstruct, widen, mill and resurface Northwest 28th Street from just east of Northwest 42nd Avenue to Northwest 37th Avenue, and created a new bypass road from Northwest 25th Street to Northwest 37th Avenue and constructed a new signalized intersection at Northwest 28th Street and Northwest 37th Avenue.
DC
October 4, 2023 at 10:52 am
what a sad joke. And these are the EXPERTS who supposedly know what they’re doing.
adam c smith
October 4, 2023 at 10:58 am
Why didn’t they think about this in the design phase 14 years ago? Very incompetent.
The Real Adam
October 4, 2023 at 2:53 pm
Wow, are we not sure this isn’t a money laundering front?
Alex
October 4, 2023 at 2:55 pm
This is unacceptable. We have been waiting for over a decade. Every county, state, federal elected leader should be ashamed.
Roy
October 4, 2023 at 6:54 pm
This Miami MIC station might actually make Amtrak money which is a concept they’re not used to.
N T
October 4, 2023 at 11:03 pm
Turn an interstate Amtrak train around⁉️. Why can’t they back in after loading everything up at 25th St? Then it’s a straight shot northward all the way to NYC.
Urbiegnone
October 5, 2023 at 9:29 pm
Florida grade separate railways challenge
Stan Potrzuski
October 7, 2023 at 1:27 pm
Build a wye which is a 3 point turn for trains. This is the solution.
Y
Matthew Clouse
November 22, 2023 at 8:29 pm
They are currently is a Wye just north of the station, although one side of the wye needs to be rebuilt. That’s one possibility., another possibility is to use the loop at the current Hialeah station and back up the last couple of miles on the way in. The Y is the same maneuver that the train does going into Tampa.
Lynn Thomas Dostal
October 8, 2023 at 1:42 pm
I will add one more wrinkle to this situation. Amtrak might actually siphon passengers off of the airlines. Passenger going to Orldando and Tampa.
YoJo
November 21, 2023 at 2:20 pm
Exactly!