Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Tri-Rail has carried over 90 million passengers since its 1989 launch
The 7 a.m. Tri-Rail train may have arrived about 20 minutes late at the Pompano Beach station, Wednesday, but the 30th anniversary of service arrived right on time Jan. 9, 2019.
Conductor Clifford Lowery has been riding these rails for 26 of those years and says some of the more than 92 million passengers that Tri-Rail has taken to jobs, schools, stores, airports and local tourism destinations, still recog-
nize him.
“I love being here, I do,” he said, on a southbound train out of West Palm Beach. “Anyone you’ve known for 15, 20 years is like family.”
South Florida Regional Transportation Authority employees were on board handing out gifts to passengers. The service launched in 1989 when supporters told skeptics it would be a pressure valve for commuters stuck in cars crawling through construction zones on Interstate 95.
I-95 construction is still there, but up to 16,000 people ride the train daily, said Steven Abrams, former Palm Beach County Commissioner and current executive director of the SFRTA that oversees operations.
“As traffic becomes more and more congested there needs to be an option, not only for travelers who want to ride our train but also for people who have to drive their cars” he said. “We take the equivalent of about one lane of traffic off I-95 each and every day.”
Michael O’Connor, 60, of Boca Raton, wouldn’t be able to get to work in Lake Worth without it.
“It’s great for all the working class people,” he said. “Unfortunately my truck broke down so it’s a good service because now I’m able to get back and forth to work.”
The trains also double as school buses. Veronica Sanchez, 13, is one of the thousands of students who climb aboard with school district chaperones every morning and afternoon.
“We feel safe and it’s fun because we’re with our friends,” she said, en route from Boca Raton to a magnet school in West Palm Beach.
Although train delays are almost routine, Abrams says on time performance is one key to keeping TriRail running another 30 years.
“We have to show that we have a transit system that runs on time, that gets people to where they need to go, and that helps the economy for the benefit of everyone, and from that starting point continue to garner support,” he said.
An estimated 4.2 million passengers rode Tri-Rail in fiscal 2017-2018, running on-schedule an average 84 percent of the time, with a one-way ticket costing nearly $7 between Miami and West Palm Beach, records show.