Why Are Miami's Trains So Weird? (feat. Alex Davis) 

If I had a nickel for every commuter rail system that was initially designed as temporary mitigation for I-95 construction, I'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.

I think we can say that Miami (literally) is just built different

The Lost Subways of North America book talks about the streetcars Miami once had as well as the original Metrorail plans! In 1926, the City of Miami had six streetcar lines, the Miami Beach Railway Co. had three lines, with the Miami Beach Line connecting downtown Miami with Miami Beach, and the Coral Gables Rapid Transit Co. had three lines, with the Ponce de Leon and Coral Way Lines reaching downtown Miami from Coral Gables. In 1979, besides the section from Hialeah to Dadeland South that got built, it was supposed to extend even further south to Cutler Ridge (now Cutler Bay) as the southern terminus of a 1 Line, and in the north, a 2 Line would terminate in Hialeah, while a 1 Line would terminate in Opa-Locka. A 3 Line would connect MIA with Douglas Road, while a 4 Line would go to downtown and cross the causeway to Miami Beach. In 2002, there was a "People's Transportation Plan" with a tax measure put into vote to expand Metrorail, and under this plan, an East-West corridor line would connect Sweetwater with MIA, Government Center, and the Port of Miami. A North Corridor/Bay link line would serve places like Carol City in Miami Gardens, Opa-Locka, Miami Dade College's North campus, head downtown, and cross the causeway to Miami Beach. An Airport Connector between Earlington Heights and MIA, which got built in 2012 as a terminus of the Orange Line. A Northeast Corridor connecting Government Center with Design District, FIU Biscayne Bay campus, Aventura, and NE 215 St (this is the Brightline corridor and what the current commuter rail plan aims to achieve). A Florida City extension by extending from Dadeland South down to SW 344 St in Florida City. And finally a Kendall line from the MIA down to Miracle Mile and Douglas Road, then south to Dadeland South, and a branch that goes to SW 147 Ave with another to FIU University Park where it meets the East-West Corridor!

The problem with South Florida transit is that it doesn't serve any suberbs west of Miami, where the majority of the population actually live and work. Maybe because it would cut into the toll revenue?

As someone who works in South Florida and travels up to the Suncoast area (Tampa Bay area) I got a few insights for you. When the original Metrorail was built, the cost exploded because local politicians set up construction companies and awarded themselves no bid contracts. The county also got land through "eminent domain" they sold that property to local politicians who then resold it back to the county..... Your experience on the Metrorail is all too common, homeless people ride on the trains all day and so do the druggies. Security doesn't empty out the trains at the end of the line, The county cut back on security to save money and replace it with CCTV and usually 1 guard per station. No one in their right mind rides the MetroMover after dark except to Miami Heat games when they have cops on board, 99% of the time the trains and stations have no security and only CCTV. The Suncoast area of Florida has 3.5 million people and are against buses and trains.... Pinellas county which voted to ban fluoridated tap water (due to a couple of commissioners who followed Alex Jones) and later the county reinstated fluoridated water.... Said that "buses and trains will put your grandparents and grandchildren at risk because elements of the community will have access to your homes and families".... That's another reason why South Florida trains don't run on the FEC, an argument was "public transportation riders will put our communities at risk".....

Sorry to hear about your metro incident but i know glad you added it, we can’t gloss over things like that when people bring it up as an excuse. If safety was just better in general in the states I think we’d see transit ridership increase.

3:31 sounds like a wise person 7:30 Reagan lied, transit died Some great shots in this video!

Day trip from Pittsburgh to Florida! My fragile European mind can't process this. The stereotype is absolutely true "Europeans think 100 miles is a long way, Americans think 100 years is a long time" 😂

Amazing video once again! I have a newfound appreciation for the expansive diversity of Miami's transit network, in addition to Brightline. Each one isn't perfect, but they're all special in their own way, and I now see that Miami showcases so many of them in great ways (another diversity feat is Tri Rail's diverse roster, consisting of GP49s and until recently, experimental bilevel DMUs from Colorado Railcar). Also, the Tri Rail Fort Lauderdale reminds me of the Grand Floridian resort in Dosney World, a hotel I would visit often when traveling to Disney, with the overall design and welcoming attitude, which is an aspect that's not found too often at commuter rail stations.

I've ridden Tri-Rail for two years now, sometimes three trains a day. The majority of the passengers come from the airports from my understanding. Some, like me, are going to/from universities, colleges, or schools that do not provide a yellow bus service. I used to see a lot of yellow school buses parked outside stations, picking up schoolkids aged from elementary to high school. Later on, I used Tri-Rail for both school and work. Like most South Floridians, I didn't even know that it existed since the stations are often inconspicuous. If you use rail transit in conjunction with bus transit, there are virtually no limits to where you can go. Other services like Freebee, Uber and Lyft discounts, and Metromover help in a similar fashion. Your analysis at the end about Miami's urban sprawl is pretty spot-on. Another thing to note is that most stations outside of Palm Beach County bear no resemblance to each other. The FTL Airport station you showed, for example, contrasts sharply with the one right before it, FTL Broward Blvd., one of the Amtrak stations. Biggest problem with the trains is not fellow passengers or access but the innumerable delays and inconsistencies in service. Sorry to hear about that happening to you on Metrorail, though.

Shame you didn't mention that in Miami, the word for bus is guagua! Guagua is the word for bus in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Canary Islands, and the word originally comes from Canarian Spanish and many Canarians (like my great-grandmother) migrated from the Canary Islands to Cuba and PR. It is an onomatopoeia stemming from the sound of a Klaxon horn. The Florida East Coast Railway built by Henry Flagler once went all the way to Key West! Because of the Panama Canal's construction at the time, Flagler wanted to link Key West to the mainland. Key West because Key West was the US's closest deep-water port to the Canal, take advantage of Latin American trade, and the opening of the Canal would allow significant trade possibilities with the West Coast. When the Overseas Railroad was in operation, it had the Havana Special as its premier train, running daily except Sundays between NYC and Key West, with connecting ferries to Havana! With speed restricted to 15 miles per hour (24 km/h) on the long bridges, it took a leisurely four and a half hours to travel the distance between Key West and Miami! The engineering challenges involved in constructing the Overseas Railroad were immense, requiring numerous feats of ingenuity and perseverance! After the railroad was damaged by the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, as the railroad was financially unable to rebuild the destroyed sections, the roadbed and remaining bridges were sold to the Florida state government, which refurbished it for car use, becoming the Overseas Highway. Unsupported sections were added in 1935 to widen it for vehicular traffic. Dismantled trackage was recycled, painted white, and used as guardrails. So the Old Seven Mile Bridge was originally a train bridge, then it became a car bridge in 1935, before of course being replaced by a newer Seven Mile Bridge in 1982, as Hurricane Donna in 1960 further damaged the bridge. After the Overseas Highway was modernized and widened with bridges replaced, the Old Seven Mile Bridge and other old Overseas Railroad bridges later became part of the Florida Keys Overseas Heritage Trail!

The handdrawn map is sending me, I love it!

So sorry to hear what happened to you on metrorail :( My experience on metrorail and metromover back in February was some of the safest, most pleasant transit I’ve ever experienced, although it probably helps that the most recent experiences I have to compare to are post pandemic CTA, plus I rode metrorail early in the morning to the airport with a police officer on board for most of the ride and even if that wasn’t the case, my three day stay is a small anecdotal snapshot that doesn’t really mean much in the grand scheme of things. My Brightline ride from MCO to MIA central was also nice, but the price was a little steep imo, I just pray they get rid of the dreaded DOTS(!!!) because they completely ruined the beautiful south Florida scenery. Also glad to know what the arch is for, I passed under it multiple times on my bike rides as well as going by it multiple times on the MetroMover to and from the apartment I booked in Edgewater.

The way you said Brickell brought me great pain

Great video from a Pensacola, Florida resident.

Great, informative video! Thank you

10:21 love the random ex-GO Transit coach bus just hanging out in Miami. So weird seeing my home province’s busses in an area that isn’t cold.

As someone from Miami who is a big supporter of public transit there is a plan to start the commuter rail in the next couple years and start the construction of the bay link people mover to Miami Beach in the next few years. Also, I’m an so sorry for what happened to you on the Metro-rail I’ve ridden it so many time and I never had a bad experience riding it. Thanks for visiting hope you can come back in the next couple and trust me, a lot is going to change in public transit for the better.

Great video! As someone who moved from Chicago to South Florida, I was sad to see that Miami's Metromover system is lacking in a lot of critical zones. I guess I was beyond spoiled with the CTA in Chicago... As for safety, I agree that there can be some weird people but my main technique on transit has always been to have an airpod in one side, open ear on the other (typically the side facing the middle of the train or the most people). I've seen cops and security onboard the train before, so that has made me feel safer.

Now that's straight up the best illustrative system map I've seen for this area, thank you - sorry you had to go through the wars to make it happen \m/

If i had a nickel for every train in Florida, I’d have 4 nickels. it’s not a lot, but it’s weird that it happened 4 times (in a row)

The title got a little chuckle out of me, we do have some strange trains atleast we have them in the end. Tri-Rail has a special place in my heart as it was the first train system (if you don't count metrorail) that I rode as a kid and it definitely helped me appreciate train travel to this day. I don't live by it but its an interesting system and I'm glad to see it expanded to downtown and the airport in recent years. I haven't rode brightline but I do appreciate it a lot, for it being in florida its impressive htey were able to get it running but i do hope that commuter rail can be put onto those tracks. The metrorail is pretty neat, I've rode it quite a few times especially recently. The old budd cars are nostalgic for me but the newer ones are much more quiet, and just look better so I'm thankful for them. I myself haven't faced any violence or stuff on the train but im really sorry you did it sucks having experienced it in another transit system. Thankfully atleast in my experience and a family member who uses it daily it seems to be a rare occasion as we both haven't encountered it you just got really unlucky sadly its always something i make sure to check my surroundings for just in case. It really does need 2-3 more lines to be a true system that can servce large amounts of the city. The metromover is strange but it works well and is free, can't really complain about it being people movers as it works, is frequent and thats what really matters.

I used both Metro transit and Tri rail the last time I was in Miami. I was happy it served Hialeah since I was going there for the casino. It’s a shame they do not have horse racing there anymore. It was one of the most beautiful tracks in America. With all the traffic in the Miami area any rail system should do good as long as it serves areas where people want to go.

Great video! I’ve never ridden Tri-Rail, but I’m really surprised to learn that it has higher ridership than MARC, especially considering how MARC directly serves both Baltimore and Washington and mainline Tri-Rail services miss downtown Miami by miles!

FELLOW TRAVEL TRANSIT RU-vidR - love this video haha

The last time I took Tri-Rail was 1989 when I pulled a Miles-in-Transit-esque family drag to ride the system round trip end to end.

The Tri-Rail station in Broward County is in the parking lot of Bass Prop Shops

I think the Orange Line is a perfect case study on branch naming in transit, since it’s effectively a branch of the Green Line. Personally, I would prefer branches where pretty much all trains running the other direction end at the same place are considered just one line, like Metrorail, the branches at the bottom of the Chicago Green line, the Red and Gold lines in Atlanta; while trains that consistently run to different end points should be treated as different lines, like the Blue and Green lines in Atlanta or pretty much every service in NYC.

Don't let one bad apple ruin the bunch. I'm sorry you've had a bad experience with the MetroMover but please do know it's been pretty good for most of us down south. Try it again one day!

With Brightline, not only are you connected to the theme parks and the international airport in Orlando, but they've been building housing by the stations, and for cruise goers, it's a great way to get to the cruise ports! The system of the Metrorail dropping people off downtown and the Metromover connecting them with the rest of downtown is basically what Detroit was aiming to achieve. The Detroit People Mover was meant to be a downtown circulator of a bigger regional plan with different rail lines and the then SEMTA Commuter Rail being expanded to Ann Arbor and Port Huron as feeders. Detroit and the suburbs couldn't agree on anything for the 600 mil. promised by Gerald Ford and so only the circulator got built before federal money was withdrawn by Reagan. Metrorail being elevated makes sense because of both the Floridian water table and not having to deal with FDOT. When the Metrorail system first opened in 1984, it opened with the MetroPath or M-Path underneath the tracks, originally a 10.5-mile trail for cyclists that crosses different intersections. This was built along the former the Florida East Coast Railway's main line ROW between Miami and Kendall, which was abandoned in 1972 and purchased by the county in 1979 for Metrorail. As a result of the success of the High Line in NYC, plans were made to revamp the MetroPath in 2014 as a linear park, dubbed the Underline. The first phase was completed in Brickell in 2021, the second phase from Brickell to just south of Vizcaya station was completed in April 2024, and when the third phase is completed, it will be completed to Dadeland South! Besides being a path for jogging and cyclists, it features things like bike repair stations, exercise equipment, art installations, and will provide access to public transportation to a university, over 20 schools, hospitals, urgent care facilities, major malls and over 10,000 businesses! Just south of Dadeland South, the paved path continues south as the South Dade Trail, all the way to Florida City. The entire route forms a 31-mile corridor!

Very cool video! Good to see Brightline might actually launch or at least allow commuter rail on a line where it actually needs it most. And hopefully with the upcoming success of Brightline West they will hopefully re-evaluate and think about electrification of the mainline so that they could offer faster passenger services along the existing corridor. Not horribly faster, but 125 MPH/200 KMH running speed would be great since this is the threshold by which you can basically still have at grade crossings in North America IF you upgrade and isolate the ROW as much as possible, something I see lacking in every smash-up news story on Brightline and its unfortunate kill count vs. people looking to beat the train the old fashioned way...

WAIT WE HAVE TRAINS?!

That comment from Reagan makes my blood boil! I wonder whether the new GTA Vice City game will have any trains (probably not). I think it says something that GTA games based in New York and LA all feature trains of one type or another, but not Miami. Sorry you had that violent experience! The worst I’ve ever had is a guy on BART who was saying stuff like the state of California has kidnapped me and going around trying to converse with passengers, but it was definitely not physical!

It seems that the FEC commuter rail if built would be very successful since the rail line is lined with more walkable communities that we built around train service in contrast to Tri-Rail passing through mainly industrial areas.

So the reason Amtrak doesn't run out of Miami Airport is due to long train consist and not enough platform? You'd think they would've planned for that or built the road over the tracks. Maybe they didn't do enough research 😆 Here's a suggestion: Depart Miami Airport, add the additional cars at the older Miami Station and then continue on. Amtrak does this with other trains: Lake Shore Limited in Albany when it splits. The Texas Eagle leaves one Superliner Coach in St. Louis, etc. I know logistics and rolling stock availability would come into play, but it would be an option.

Evadeable fare gates are the best.

Nice pic of Cleveland's red line

Wish Tampa could build commuter rail

ik alex

Great video as always. Side note its pronounced "Brick-al" like Nickel.

You pretty much have to drive everywhere in Miami. Walking is nearly nonexistent. The bus system is horrible after they changed the routes (every bus is full of people now)(what's funnier is that when they made the busses free for two months, they weren't as packed). The politicians and residents in Miami Beach are so full of themselves that they rejected an alternative to getting off their dogshit island that doesn't involve driving on the causeways. Something else to mention is that in Miami Beach, Coral Gables, Downtown Miami, etc. they have these trolleys which are operated by the city and are pretty much glorified busses (except for the ones in Miami Beach that are scary to be on). Great Video tho.

Oh from Pittsburgh!! I'm from Miami but I'm half a Penguins fan!!!! Go Panthers! Go Penguins!

6:13 Is that an RTS?

Nice that you managed to cover so much of Miami's transit network in 14 minutes. I think the success of Brightline in has the potential to kickstart a new inter-city rail renaissance on this continent. also 9:26 the lines you drew are clockwise even though you said counterclockwise

It only works for people in high income areas

FDOT fixed the issue with the platforms at the intermodal center. It's not necessarily that the platforms are too short but that the train would be so long that they would block car traffic at the north crossing. FDOT fixed this by making an auxiliary road for the cars in case the long Amtrak trains block the crossing.

So about the state of Tri-rail's rolling stock, I'll say the same thing I said to Trains Are Awesome, and it's that you both got unlucky, as there's actually a few different rolling stock models in service and unfortunately you were on the oldest one. The newer coaches feel a LOT more modern in comparison (even the water fountains seem drinkable!), the seats are more comfortable (and have a twos layout instead of fours, with the exception of tables though they do still have work to be done in all honesty, but it's still much better than what you got P.S. I am upset that you cut off the map of the old Florida East Coast Railway before it showed the GLORY that was the Overseas Railway. All the way to Key West baby

You forgot to mention Fortress Capital the owners of Brightline also own the Florida East Coast Rail Road. Also the Miami Metro plans to explain a line to Aventura. Other than that good video. There is one more rideable train in South Florida. There a full size Train at the Train museum next to Miami Zoo that rideable.

i suppose four cities, if you count the Morgantown PRT

Attention commenters, there’s a Phineas and Ferb reference somewhere in this comment section

You don't need to buy an easy card if your debit/credit allows tap.

Did I see a GO Transit bud driving on the highway that the Outer Loop Metromover passed over? I trust that was a private coach operator who hadn’t bothered to repaint their second hand buses because I don’t think Government of Ontario Transit runs service outside Ontario given their name.

It’s because they’re in Florida 💀

Is that a GO Transit bus at 10:22?

Only time I was robbed in my entire life happened on the Miami Metrorail. So glad to not live anywhere near there anymore. Safe in Chicago with real functional transit.

Someone should make a easter egg mod of a Caleb NPC riding the metro in GTA VI...

10:20 NOW THAT IS A FUN FACT

It's a shame you were harassed by someone on the Metrorail. I would have just gotten off and taken the next train. Of all the US's metros, Miami is probably one of the safest, I have never encountered problems on it. Ironically, the Metromover is the least safe of the trains and has incidents every so often, usually at night. Since you didn't go to Government Center Station, you missed the ghost platform on the second level which at one point would have been the East/West line before they scrapped expansion plans. Hopefully the system gets expanded someday but there is no local political interest and every time an expansion plan comes along, the county commissioners siphon the money away for pet projects. The southern Busway expansion is currently underway as a Rapid Bus Transit [BRT] with the capability to "Convert To Metrorail" if demand picks up, but I doubt that will ever happen. They are working on the Metromover expansion to the beach but there is a lot of NIMBY pushback currently stalling it.

10:05 good lord, we need to be removing freeways from downtowns, not building new ones. Pfft.

Wouldn’t it be wild if Amtrak was kicked out of Florida and the tri rail combined with the metro via 3rd rail electrification or hybrid catenary/3rd rail trains for Miami 😅wasted opportunity no?

I think you're going to talk about that incident on the Metrorail while you're filming there. Much love from a non-carbrained New Yorker.

8:24 me too

as someone who lived in all three of these cities (some years without a car) i am hyper obsessed with this topic yet also dont care anymore and have decided to just leave. Miami will never be built for its people, it exists as a playground for wealthy people from all over the world.

"A heavy metro panned by Ronald Reagan." I instantly fell in love with this train.

8:50 why public transit will never work in the US

Sorry for having someone harass you, not a good first impression of Miami :(

"more than MARC" maryland continuing to catch strays over our horribly underfunded transit service....

People movers for the win. The Omni loop is my favorite mover track in Miami. Downtown Miami was much more exciting in the early 90's. It's basically a wasteland currently. No reason to really go there, but the 'Bayside' area is nice at night. That's where the action and fun is. Thanks for visiting my hometown!

Featuring two cults at 2:38 and 11:10

This map doesn’t really fit it’s a little clustered

Ronald Reagan saying something dumb? No way!

Yeah, no... I live in Miami and you did not have that drug addict thing happen, security is extremely tight between MIA and the orange line terminus, also you filmed an empty train car but somehow someone magically appeared.

Incompetence, laziness and stupidity (ie, Government) are the reasons Amtrak doesn't serve the intermodal center. They should all be fired. The State & County spend a pile of money reconfiguring the roads to accommodate the longer trains but Amtrak just whines about it being too hard to back into the terminal. Instead, we're stuck with the POS, middle of nowhere Miami Station that doesn't even have level boarding. President Regan was _not_ lying so you lose. Annualized ridership, even over 3 years. This is why TransitTube can be so cringey. Private = Operating. Public = Fantasy.