TRAINS!

Details are only beginning to emerge about possible plans for expanded train service, but we have to begin somewhere, so here is a primer on trains "West of Aventura."   

Train Set 1: The Florida East Coast Railway, or "FEC"
You may wonder: who was the brilliant city planner who decided to put the freight train tracks through all the densely populated cities, and run the commuter rail line next to the highway, where all the industrial areas are?  The answer is something like "the trains were here first."  I'll explain.


Henry Flagler is known as the "Father of Miami," and mostly due to trains.  Flagler amassed a vast fortune by building (with John D. Rockefeller) the biggest, most prosperous and monopolizing oil empire of the 1800s: Standard Oil.  Flagler then got into the hotel business, beginning with the 540-room Ponce de León Hotel in St. Augustine.  He then faced the challenge of bringing guests to the new hotel, and solved it (in typical billionaire style) by purchasing short line railroads that would later become known as the Florida East Coast Railway.

Flagler originally intended West Palm Beach to be the terminus of his railroad system, but as wikipedia puts it: "in 1894 and 1895, severe freezes hit the area, causing Flagler to rethink his original decision. Sixty miles south, the town today known as Miami was reportedly unharmed by the freeze. To further convince Flagler to continue the railroad to Miami, he was offered land in exchange for laying rail tracks from private landowners, including Julia Tuttle."

"Despite 116 years of active service, FEC hasn’t run a passenger train on its rails since 1968. What was once known as 'America’s Speedway to Sunshine' now carries nothing but freight. A violent strike by the United Transportation Workers prompted FEC officials to discontinue passenger service, which had already become difficult and unprofitable to operate under intense government regulations and growing competition from airlines and automobiles." [source: Cantarella, cited and linked to below]

So you now see that the Florida East Cost Railway, or "FEC" as we know it locally today, is the historical backbone of South Florida.  So we should expect freight trains (currently 15 of them a day) here in "West Aventura" for the foreseeable future.  And with the development of the $1B under-the-bay tunnel to the Port of Miami nearing its May 20, 2014 completion date [more details about the tunnel and it's opening date here], those 11-14 daily trains could GROW, either in number of trains each day, or in length of those (already endless) cargo trains. 

Subtotal: let's say 14 trains a day

Train Set 2: All Aboard Florida
The Biscayne Times did an exhaustive (to read) story on All Aboard Florida ("AAF") and its designs to bring high-speed rail to Florida's East Coast, passing through West Aventura.  The full September 2013 story by Terence Cantarella (caution: it's a long one) is readable here. 

AAF is a new passenger rail service that will connect Miami and Orlando starting in 2015, promising to "run very fast hourly trains on time, with great amenities (wifi, level "stairless" boarding, food for purchase, etc.), from beautifully designed, centrally located stations."  It would be the only privately-funded passenger rail line in the United States.

Only 4 AAF stations are envisioned.  From the AAF website:

All Aboard Florida's station locations will be centered in the downtowns of Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, and the planned Intermodal Station at the Orlando International Airport's future South Terminal. All locations will provide access to international airports, seaports, and existing and future transit systems, such as SunRail in Orange County, and Metrorail and Metromover in Miami-Dade County.

So AAF trains will pass by, but not stop here.  If you want to take an AAF train to visit Disney with the kiddies, you would have to go north to FLL to board, or South to Miami.

The Cantarella story contains some good investigative journalism.  About half-way into the story he looks at the complicated corporate ownership of AAF, which is actually overseen by two companies: an Operations branch (which owns the easement right to develop and operate passenger rail service in the existing rail corridor) and a Stations company (which owns much of the land for the stations in downtown Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and West Palm Beach).  Both are wholly-owned subsidiaries of Coral Gables-based Florida East Coast Industries (FECI). In turn, FECI, along with the Florida East Coast Railway LLC (FEC), is owned by “investment equity funds managed by affiliates of Fortress Investment Group LLC” (a New York City investment-management firm, and the first hedge fund in the U.S. to trade publicly).

Cantarella interviews Gilbert B. Norman, a retired Chicago CPA and former senior internal auditor at the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific Railroad.  Norman believes that All Aboard Florida was created by Fortress Investment Group to entice the state to buy the FEC rail corridor, which Fortress owns.  Before AAF is developed, Norman predicts that Fortress Investment Group will approach the state about buying the corridor (with AAF disappearing soon after).  Other observers predict that AAF will begin operations, but quickly become unprofitable, resulting in pressure on Florida to buy the operations component of the business. Fortress will pocket an exorbitant sum from the sale while continuing to charge the state to use the corridor and rake in millions from the bustling new train stations.

While the above is (pessimistic) speculation, what we do know is that AAF plans is to run a train every hour from about 6:00 a.m. until 8:00 p.m. According to AAF, having private tracks, few stops, and the ability to reach 125 mph in some areas will make it possible to travel from Miami to Orlando in a projected three hours.

Amie Goddeau (amie.goddeau@dot.state.fl.us), the "FDOT Future Corridor Coordinator" for District 4 attended the 4/23 HOA meeting.  She confirmed that hourly service from 6am to 8pm would mean 16 daily round-trips.  That means 32 additional trains crossing Ives Dairy Road.


Added to the FEC freight trains from the last section - Subtotal: 46 trains.


Train Set 3: Tri-Rail Coastal Link

Finally we come to the train system that would have the largest impact on our area, because it envisions the construction of a rail station on the vacant lands described in the last post [here].

Tri-Rail Coastal Link ("TRCL") reports are viewable here.  The "Tri-Rail Coastal Link Station Area Opportunities" report on that page is the source of the picture in my February post "Commercial Tax Base West of Aventura," which is worth re-posting again here:

Contrast that image with the one posted in my last post on this Blog:

You will see that already the plan envisioned by TRCL requires modification: the envisioned location of the "192nd Street Station" is already slated for rental-apartment development by LG Aventura LLC (Gables Residential).  This means the more likely location of the station will be on the land indicated with a red border in the above image (owned by the Ben-Shmuel trusts).

Amie Goddeau (Florida Department of Transportation) disclosed the following facts about the TRCL project at the April HOA meeting:

• TRCL is a publicly funded project (All-Aboard Florida is private)
• travel time from "West Aventura" to downtown: estimated 29 minutes
• ticket prices would be 75% subsidized (ie: kept artificially low to encourage ridership)
• pedestrian overpass to Aventura Mall is being discussed with mall owners
• workshops will be held in August
• construction would be from 2018-2020

Some thoughts:

If Aventura Mall wants a pedestrian overpass, I sure hope they are paying the entire cost for the station, since this is just a complete money-making windfall for them.

Goddeau noted that all the transportation people had been in close contact with the owners of Aventura Mall and the City of Aventura concerning these developments.  Without a government of our own, the information has been harder to come by, but with the reporting here and meetings held (and to-be held), we are coming up to speed.

I feel that commuter rail where commuters actually LIVE is a good idea, but I'm sure all of us in "West Aventura" want to ensure that surrounding infrastructure is developed to avoid a quagmire.  For this reason this blog will continue to post updates on any and all 'developments related to development.'  The goal is to avoid the very corruption that the "NO to incorporation" people are most concerned about.

Oh, and by the way, the subtotal?  Still digging for info, but early indications are approximately 50.
The Grand Total: 80-100 trains.  Per day.  Wow.

I'm not saying "there goes the neighborhood," because being able to ride a bike a short distance to catch a train downtown would be a great resource for a city that has a terrible commuting infrastructure.  But I wouldn't be lining up to rent an apartment from Gables Residential if doing so would mean having 100 trains passing by my window every day.

Coming Soon: Coverage of May 1 NE MAC meeting.