Tri-Rail has 'a path forward' despite a $30 million shortfall in state funding that counties appear unable to bridge, the chief of the agency overseeing the service told WLRN.
The future of the train operation, which had 4.5 million riders last year, has been in jeopardy ever since the state slashed funding to the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority (SFRTA), which manages the service, in June
SFRTA expected $42.1 million from the state this year, but ended up receiving just $15 million. That has heightened the severity of funding talks between SFRTA and the counties it services — Broward, Miami Dade and Palm Beach.
Earlier this year, SFRTA informed the counties that the state was expecting them to start contributing more to the operation of Tri-Rail. The initial ask was for $10 million additional per year, with the number eventually climbing to $30 million per year from each county. The counties currently commit $4.2 million per year.
But now, Miami-Dade is facing a budget crunch, Broward has the looming threat of state DOGE audits — and all three counties seem unable to pony up.
"It is not a place we want it to be, that is for certain. It really is just a double whammy with our funding going away," SFRTA’s executive director David Dech told WRLN.
READ MORE: Tri-Rail budget needs $30 million from counties or operations could cease, warns transit official
Tri-Rail does have funding in place to remain operational until July of 2027. If Tri-Rail ceases to exist, it would have massive impacts on traffic in South Florida. If the service goes away, experts say it would be the equivalent of adding a lane’s worth of traffic each way on I-95 every day.
“Even if you have no intention of ever sitting down on one of our trains, you would like everybody else on I-95 to be sitting down on one of our trains. So, our success is everybody's success,” said Dech.
WLRN’s Carlton Gillespie spoke with Dech about the funding problems facing Tri-Rail and what the future holds for the service.
WLRN: I was hoping you could give us a sense of the scale of the problem. How big is the funding gap for Tri Rail?
Dech: We operate about $150 million a year annual operating budget. We were counting on $62 million this year from the State of Florida. The statutory minimum as we always understood it was $42.1 million. And when the budget came out and the state reevaluated their interpretation of the statutory minimum to $15 million, that was quite the blow to us. You're looking at an immediate $30 million, $40 million hit. Obviously we backed up and we're starting to make contingency plans.
What does this look like? We can go into our reserves, but this really affects Tri-Rail for a couple different reasons. It's the immediate short term with the dollar amounts, right? That money is one thing. And then on the other part of it is, with zeroing out the Florida Rail Enterprise and the annual sources of dedicated funding in the state budget that made SFRTA an annual line item, which then we can't enter into long-term contracts. So that needs to be fixed legislatively next year.
It couldn't have happened at a worse time for SFRTA. We were going out for many capital projects that are multi-year capital projects as well as our long anticipated, much awaited rolling stock procurement. We need to figure out our annual finances and our livelihood here going forward before we can make such a substantial purchase.
You've looked at department efficiencies, staff reductions, cutting back weekend train services, but from what I understand, that's just not gonna be enough to fix this gap. I think you said we're not gonna save our way to prosperity. What are some of the other creative solutions you've explored in terms of raising funds?
So obviously we look at our transit-oriented developments, but those are longer term processes. We're looking at different fare equations, but for every dollar you raise a fare, you risk losing some of those people as well. So we've looked at weekends, we've looked at reducing weekday service, we've looked at reducing the express train. But some of these things we are contractually bound to, we're obligated to run 50 trains a day. So that takes that off the table. The Miami-Dade DDA (Downtown Development Authority) that I have a contract with — when they helped fund the Miami Central Station — that requires us to run 26 trains into Miami Central. So that limits our opportunities there.
Obviously we've been looking internally, positions that we either need or don't need. We were staffing up. We wanted to be prepared to take on these large capital projects. We now have to reevaluate that. We've really scaled back our operations department.
We run about a little over 10% administrative cost. So, though we'll keep looking again, 10% of our budget isn't gonna move the needle a lot.
"I do think there's a path forward. It's gonna be much, much more difficult than it was."
We spoke back in March just after you had met with representatives from Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach to have these preliminary funding conversations for the first time. Back then, you said you were cautiously optimistic. Each county indicated that Tri=Rail is a key component of the regional transportation picture in South Florida. But now Miami-Dade is dealing with a huge budget shortfall and Broward County has state DOGE audits hanging over them. It seems even less likely that they're gonna be even able to open their pocketbooks for Tri-Rail money.
It is not a place we want it to be, that is for certain. It really is just a double whammy with our funding going away, the business rental tax, which is how of course the counties calculated part of their surtax. So yeah, it makes that conversation that much harder.
We did have a meeting about a week ago with the counties that went better than I expected. No commitments out of that meeting. I know the counties are having a meeting without FDOT and Tri-Rail in the room. You're gonna be asking very simple questions. Is Tri Rail a service worth saving? Do we provide the value that's worth saving, and then at what cost?
And those are really very senior level people in the counties who are getting together to have that conversation. I don't know that the answer will come out today, but I still have a little, some optimism.
I said in our board workshop I have to remain optimistic or else I can't come to work every day, and think that there's a path forward. I do think there's a path forward. It's gonna be much, much more difficult than it was.
All this is coming at a time when Tri Rail has record ridership.
That, that is correct. We broke our annual ridership record of just over 4.5 million people. We barely missed it last year. But I really do think the express train put us over the top this year. Those were some new riders. We've had about 60,000 people ride that express train so far this year and that was just enough to put us over the top.
And what about the opportunity cost? If those4.5 million riders a year aren't getting on your trains, they're getting on I-95 or surface streets that are managed by the state or the counties, those roadway systems are gonna need to be improved, right? And that comes with a price tag.
…And certainly more than it costs to operate Tri-rail. I don't know what that number is. I know it's more than what we cost.
You've said that Tri Rail has enough money, its reserves, to stay operational until about July of 2027. Right now, what's your confidence level that Tri-Rail will be operating in August of 2027.
I really wish I had a good answer for you. I don't know.
We're gonna spend every waking moment working towards that. We're working with trying to bring our expenses down... —and I think we've made a very good case over the last three, four years of the value that we can bring. I believe we will be running, but I think we have a tremendous amount of work to do to get there.
I've always said, even if you have no intention of ever sitting down on one of our trains, you would like everybody else on I-95 to be sitting down on one of our trains. So our success is everybody's success even if you have no intention of ever taking the train, you sure would like the other people on 95 to be taking that train.
