Passenger rail service on track for CSX in South Dade

The Transportation Planning Organization has chugged ahead by one station on its long journey to bring shared passenger-freight rail service to South Dade as it cemented the aim into its long-range plan.

The hunt for commuter rail transit in the southern part of the county has been long and was sidetracked for years as freight railroad CSX sought a high price to sell the routes to the county. Then came a recent change in management and philosophies by CSX, which owns multiple sets of tracks to the south but has used them only infrequently for freight.

That got multiple commissioners and county officials talking informally with the line. Concerned that too many engineers were at the throttle, the planning organization last month named its Executive Director Aileen Bouclé as official master engineer for the talks.

Then last week, county Commissioner Kionne McGhee, who represents some of the area involved, offered the successful resolution that amended the planning organization’s 2045 long-range master plan to “include the Southwest Rail Corridor project” as an unfunded aim for shared freight-passenger use of the corridor. The vote was unanimous.

The railroad itself has been absent from multiple county committee and planning organization meetings over recent months that discussed use of its tracks to add needed passenger rail services. CSX made its first formal appearance at last week’s meeting via a statement that Ms. Bouclé read into the record, formalizing its interest in moving forward with sharing the freight tracks for passenger rail.

“CSX is in communication with the Miami-Dade Transportation Planning Organization on its efforts and looks forward to continuing to support the organization’s vision consistent with our four pillars of safety, capacity, indemnification, and funding for new or enhanced passenger operations,” the statement said in full.

Trains on the CSX tracks linking South Dade and Miami International Airport could lure up to 2 million annual riders, the planning organization learned at its Nov. 2 meeting, as it got a choice of three routes that the county would have to access via purchase at fair market value or cut a deal to share with CSX freight service.

A study that the organization had ordered saw trains carrying passengers from 5:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. at 30 miles per hour average and 60 top speed on a route from the Miami Intermodal Center next to the airport rolling on any of three routes south, one ending at Southwest 137th Avenue, another at 157th Avenue and the third in Homestead.

Putting the corridor into the long-range plan allows the project’s sponsoring agency to start formally seeking state and federal money to make the service a reality.

The corridor is not now in the Smart Program of six planned rapid transit corridors in the county being funded in large measure by the county’s half-percent sales tax to add new transit.

The study found that freight and passenger services could coexist safely and efficiently but would need new track, new signals, stations with parking, new bridges, upgraded crossings and the trains themselves. It says existing freight service wouldn’t significantly affect passenger service.

But while the initial passenger trains could share a single track with freight trains by using passing sidings, the study said, that would allow passenger trips no more frequently than every 30 minutes at rush hour and every hour otherwise.