Tri-Rail is being used by more than 350,000 people in South Florida for the first time since February 2020.
South Florida Regional Transportation Authority (SFRTA), which runs Tri-Rail, said that there could be many reasons for this increase.
WPTV talked to passengers and the head of SFRTA to get their thoughts.
At the West Palm Beach stop on Thursday, some people were waiting to go south to Miami, while others were waiting to go north to Magnolia Park.
Rosetta Clevenstein went from Palm Coast, a beach town north of Orlando, to Palm Beach County.
She was going to Miami to take a Disney cruise ship trip. She drove half of the way and took the train the other half.
She told WPTV that she was waiting for the southbound train because she thought traffic would be worse and it would be safer to take the train.
Some people find it easier and cheaper, too.
SFRTA did a study and found that half of the people who ride the train do so to get to and from work. About 30% of people use it for fun, and another 50% use it to go to the airport.
The executive head of SFRTA, David Dech, said that there are a few reasons for the rise.
He said, “Gas prices are still staying pretty high.” “There are a lot more people going back to work. We think that Tri-Rail service is getting better. I think a number of things are to blame.”
For the first time in three years, the number of riders is slowly but steadily going up. On some Mondays, close to 14,000 people get on board. Dech said that the important thing is to look ahead.
He said, “I want to get to a point where we have a service here that people use and we don’t have to look back and say, ‘This is how things used to be’ or say that this is the ‘new normal.'”
Dech and other riders say there are still things to work on, though.
Dech said, “We have a long way to go.” “We have some problems with reliability, and we have some problems with cleanliness that we need to work on.”
He told WPTV that they are already trying to make the trains safer and get more people to use them as part of their daily journey.
