After having taken Brightline up for the NHL All-Star Beach Festival in Fort Lauderdale, I decided to take a combination of buses and Tri-Rail up to see the actual game itself in Sunrise, FL - I wanted to check out Tri-Rail, and with the weather kind of gloomy I wasn’t missing anything at the beach by taking a long transit trip. I had done a transit adventure to get to yesterday’s Skills Competition at the same arena , but it was only buses - one Miami-Dade bus to downtown Miami and a Broward County commuter express bus to a park & ride located at the arena. That went OK, though bus delays (and apparently a bus breakdown) meant I got there an hour later than planned (though I planned to get there super-early, so was still on time). And I had to take an Uber back because the alternative was 4 local buses with connections in places I’d never heard of arriving at 1:20am…
Anyway, my trip started by taking the Miami-Dade 150 Airport Express bus. That showed up on time and provided an uneventful ride to the Miami Airport Tri-Rail/Metrorail (and future Amtrak?) station. My bus arrived about 20 minutes before the train, so I looked around the station a bit - I saw a station there waiting for Amtrak (with Amtrak signage) as well as signs for Amtrak on the platform, though there was also signs saying Amtrak is not serving this station at this time (as I was aware). I have heard the history involving a platform built too short for the Silver trains, which is kind of crazy. Last I heard that was straightened out, but there’s still some things to work out - funny enough, there is similarly an unused but signed Tri-Rail platform at Brightline’s MiamiCentral (I recall something about the train size - Florida sure has problems building platforms right…), also waiting for some issues to be resolved before they can use it.
Anyway, the Tri-Rail train was sitting on the platform with the doors open even though it was still a while from departure, so I got on. Think it’s nice when they allow that as opposed to making you wait on the platform. Ticket It left on-time and we soon made our way northbound, going through Hialeah Market and Metrorail Transfer stations before passing the current Miami Amtrak station, where I could see the consist for one of the Silvers. It does seem like a poor location far from a thing of interest - the airport transit hub seems like it would be way better for riders. It was striking how close it was to Metrorail Transfer station without being integrated. The Tri-Rail equipment was similar to that on many commuter rail systems - I recall Coaster and Metrolink in California using the same type of cars, to name a few. Definitely not as nice as Brightline’s, though the cost of a ticket is far less (I paid $5 for a weekend day pass - actually $7 since I wanted to get one on an Easy Card for my transit card collection). We soon made it to Fort Lauderdale after passing through a number of intermediate stations including Fort Lauderdale Airport (which actually seemed farther from the airport than the Brightline tracks, though it actually stops).
Made it to Fort Lauderdale station shortly after noon. Was planning to eat the lunch I had packed when I had a thought - isn’t the Silver Star supposed to come through soon (this being the Amtrak as well as Tri-Rail station)? Looked it up and indeed it was in a few minutes - guestting the consist at Miami station was the Star. It soon came into the station, and I captured video of the arrival (attached here). Was neat to see the Viewliners, which is not something I see in Michigan (and even when I do long distance trains it’s almost all Superliners). Had thought about taking one of the Silvers+Capitol Limited to and from Florida, but I decided a few extra days on the beach was better than a few days on trains with flex dining. After the Star left I ate my lunch and found my way to the Broward County Transit bus stop, where I was going to take the 22 route to Sawgrass Mills (across the street from the arena), That bus showed up a few minutes late, though I still made it with plenty of time before my game, though I had to Take a meandering walk to get to the arena due to entrances being blocked off and the massive parking craters around the mall/arena.
The game was good, though the return trip didn’t go as planned. I was going to take the same 22 bus back to Tri-Rail and do the same trip in reverse - if the 22 was too delayed to make the connection, my backup plan was to continue to Brightline and take that to MiamiCentral (Tri-Rail had a 2 hour gap between the train I was hoping to connect to and the following one). Instead of going to the mall, I went to a stop the same side of the street as the arena, though I walked a little farther to try and ensure the bus wasn’t blocked from reaching the stop by post-game traffic operations. However, the 22 never showed at all, despite my seeing the 22 heading towards the mall shortly before it was supposed to stop there. On the tracking app, the bus showed as 1 minute away for over 20 min and then just disappeared. I wasn’t the only one there - others were waiting there wondering where the bus was. However, once the bus disappeared from the tracking app, I decided to just admit defeat and take an Uber back - I wasn’t making Tri-Rail anyway unless I waited for the train 2 hours later, and it was dark out.
Ended up getting a not horrible price (knowing that surge pricing can be crazy at these kind of events), and got home earlier than planned, so it wasn’t too bad. At this point it’s obvious that South Florida transit (particularly bus transit, and particularly during congested times) isn’t great, even compared to some other car-centric places like San Diego or LA. I really just wanted to check out Tri-Rail, and I succeeded there (and got to see the Silver Star as a bonus) - if I were to visit this arena again, I’d just take an Uber if someone wasn’t driving.
Anyway, my trip started by taking the Miami-Dade 150 Airport Express bus. That showed up on time and provided an uneventful ride to the Miami Airport Tri-Rail/Metrorail (and future Amtrak?) station. My bus arrived about 20 minutes before the train, so I looked around the station a bit - I saw a station there waiting for Amtrak (with Amtrak signage) as well as signs for Amtrak on the platform, though there was also signs saying Amtrak is not serving this station at this time (as I was aware). I have heard the history involving a platform built too short for the Silver trains, which is kind of crazy. Last I heard that was straightened out, but there’s still some things to work out - funny enough, there is similarly an unused but signed Tri-Rail platform at Brightline’s MiamiCentral (I recall something about the train size - Florida sure has problems building platforms right…), also waiting for some issues to be resolved before they can use it.
Anyway, the Tri-Rail train was sitting on the platform with the doors open even though it was still a while from departure, so I got on. Think it’s nice when they allow that as opposed to making you wait on the platform. Ticket It left on-time and we soon made our way northbound, going through Hialeah Market and Metrorail Transfer stations before passing the current Miami Amtrak station, where I could see the consist for one of the Silvers. It does seem like a poor location far from a thing of interest - the airport transit hub seems like it would be way better for riders. It was striking how close it was to Metrorail Transfer station without being integrated. The Tri-Rail equipment was similar to that on many commuter rail systems - I recall Coaster and Metrolink in California using the same type of cars, to name a few. Definitely not as nice as Brightline’s, though the cost of a ticket is far less (I paid $5 for a weekend day pass - actually $7 since I wanted to get one on an Easy Card for my transit card collection). We soon made it to Fort Lauderdale after passing through a number of intermediate stations including Fort Lauderdale Airport (which actually seemed farther from the airport than the Brightline tracks, though it actually stops).
Made it to Fort Lauderdale station shortly after noon. Was planning to eat the lunch I had packed when I had a thought - isn’t the Silver Star supposed to come through soon (this being the Amtrak as well as Tri-Rail station)? Looked it up and indeed it was in a few minutes - guestting the consist at Miami station was the Star. It soon came into the station, and I captured video of the arrival (attached here). Was neat to see the Viewliners, which is not something I see in Michigan (and even when I do long distance trains it’s almost all Superliners). Had thought about taking one of the Silvers+Capitol Limited to and from Florida, but I decided a few extra days on the beach was better than a few days on trains with flex dining. After the Star left I ate my lunch and found my way to the Broward County Transit bus stop, where I was going to take the 22 route to Sawgrass Mills (across the street from the arena), That bus showed up a few minutes late, though I still made it with plenty of time before my game, though I had to Take a meandering walk to get to the arena due to entrances being blocked off and the massive parking craters around the mall/arena.
The game was good, though the return trip didn’t go as planned. I was going to take the same 22 bus back to Tri-Rail and do the same trip in reverse - if the 22 was too delayed to make the connection, my backup plan was to continue to Brightline and take that to MiamiCentral (Tri-Rail had a 2 hour gap between the train I was hoping to connect to and the following one). Instead of going to the mall, I went to a stop the same side of the street as the arena, though I walked a little farther to try and ensure the bus wasn’t blocked from reaching the stop by post-game traffic operations. However, the 22 never showed at all, despite my seeing the 22 heading towards the mall shortly before it was supposed to stop there. On the tracking app, the bus showed as 1 minute away for over 20 min and then just disappeared. I wasn’t the only one there - others were waiting there wondering where the bus was. However, once the bus disappeared from the tracking app, I decided to just admit defeat and take an Uber back - I wasn’t making Tri-Rail anyway unless I waited for the train 2 hours later, and it was dark out.
Ended up getting a not horrible price (knowing that surge pricing can be crazy at these kind of events), and got home earlier than planned, so it wasn’t too bad. At this point it’s obvious that South Florida transit (particularly bus transit, and particularly during congested times) isn’t great, even compared to some other car-centric places like San Diego or LA. I really just wanted to check out Tri-Rail, and I succeeded there (and got to see the Silver Star as a bonus) - if I were to visit this arena again, I’d just take an Uber if someone wasn’t driving.
