Take this survey: How can Tri-Rail improve onboard travel, safety and getting to stations?
Anyone who wants to influence South Florida's publicly funded passenger train, Tri-Rail, to make it more convenient to go to and from its Palm Beach County train stations has until Friday to share their thoughts in a special survey.
The Palm Beach Transportation Agency is taking answers in a survey online at PalmBeachTPA.org/TriRailSurvey and in person at Tri-Rail's stations in Mangonia Park, downtown West Palm Beach, Lake Worth Beach, Boynton Beach, Delray Beach and Boca Raton.
Survey questions include:
What would make your trip to the train station easier?
How safe do you feel getting to the station?
How would you describe your travel experience to and from Tri-Rail stations?
The Palm Beach Transportation Planning Agency will send survey results to Tri-Rail; Palm Beach County's public bus operator, Palm Tran; and the local and state government agencies that maintain roads.
The agency will include recommendations on how to improve the stations, bus connections and roadways to make it faster, easier and more convenient for Tri-Rail passengers to drive or take the bus to its stations and find parking.
It will also include recommendations on improving passengers' feeling of safety at the stations.
Tri-Rail express vs. Brightline: How prices food, ride, timing, other amenities compare
A Tri-Rail leaves the station in West Palm Beach in 2024.
"If more people can walk, bike, and use the transit system safely and conveniently, then all, including drivers, will benefit," said Brian Ruscher, deputy director of multimodal for the Palm Beach Transportation Planning Agency.
The Palm Beach Transportation Planning Agency helps shepherd tax money from state and federal agencies to road and transit projects in Palm Beach County. Federal law requires urban areas seeking federal money to have such agencies.
Also: 5 things to know about Tri-Rail's new express route from West Palm to Miami
Tri-Rail carries an average of 385,000 passengers monthly on its 73.5-mile rail line between Mangonia Park and Miami, the rail service reported in April. More than 4.4 million people rode the train in 2024, about 30,000 short of its record high of about 4.5 million in 2019.
Tri-Rail faces a possible $30 million yearly budget deficit that it has been asking the governments of Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade to plug.
COVID-19 relief money from the Biden administration's American Rescue Plan in 2021 has been bolstering Tri-Rail's budget but will run out by the end of 2026. The commuter rail service would have to dip into its savings, which would be depleted by the end of 2028, Tri-Rail officials have warned. All of Palm Beach County's members of Congress at the time, except Republican Brian Mast, voted for the American Rescue Plan.
More: Nearly 1,000 Tri-Rail riders take advantage of $180 monthly discounts for Uber, Lyft, taxi
Without other sources of money to replace the COVID relief money, the rail service might have to cut service and nix long-discussed plans for expanding north to the VA Medical Center in Riviera Beach.
Tri-Rail announced in April it would crack down on fare dodgers as part of its attempt to persuade local politicians to fund the commuter service.
Tri-Rail has expanded service in recent years to include subsidized rides on Uber, Lyft and taxi services to and from train stations, along with an express train for morning and afternoon rush hour commuters, late-night trains and special trains for big events such as SunFest in West Palm Beach, Ultra Music Festival in Miami and Taylor Swift's Eras tour concert in Miami Gardens.
One-way fares for nondisabled adults, express train or not, range from $2.50 to $8.75, depending on the length of the ride. Weekend and holiday fares are $5. The line runs mostly on tracks running next to Interstate 95. Tri-Rail started in 1989 to relieve traffic on that highway.
Chris Persaud covers transportation in Palm Beach County for The Palm Beach Post. Email news tips and ideas to cpersaud@pbpost.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Take this survey: How can Tri-Rail improve train stations, travel?
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Yahoo
Report: Most Montanans agree tourism benefits outweigh negative impacts
A NPS ranger monitors a packed parking lot at Logan Pass in Glacier National Park. (Image via NPS) The percentage of Montanans who believe the benefits of tourism outweigh the negative impacts held steady from last year, but residents feel local communities are becoming more overcrowded, according to a report released in April by the University of Montana Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research (ITRR). The report, 'Montana Residents: Attitudes Towards Tourism 2024,' is the latest survey posing a set of questions to Montanans over the last 30 years regarding their attitudes toward visitors. Overall, 68% of respondents to the 2024 survey agreed that the benefits of tourism outweigh the negative impacts, in line with last year's 69%. However, it was just the fourth time less than 70% of Montanans have expressed a positive attitude toward out-of-state visitors. The lowest recorded positive attitude (52%) was in 2001, which researchers attributed to the aftermath of the September 2001 terrorist attacks. The second-lowest finding was in 2022, which followed record-breaking visitation after the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the ITRR report, residents of Montana's Glacier Country tourism region, which covers the state's eight westernmost counties, remained the least likely to see tourism as a benefit, but that sentiment climbed for the second year in a row. However, that region of the state is also seeing a drastic visitation change this year, as visits from Canadians are down, following President Donald Trump's threats to make the neighbor the 51st state, and prompting targeted marketing from Montana. Residents in Central Montana saw the largest increase in positive sentiment, up to 70%, while residents of Southeast and Southwest Montana dropped their views on visitors. 'In general, Montana residents held a positive yet balanced attitude toward tourism within the state,' the report said. 'A majority of residents feel that the benefits of tourism outweigh the negative impacts, while also being in strong agreement that tourism promotion by the state provides an economic benefit to their community.' In Montana out-of-state visitors spent nearly $5 billion in 2024, contributing to the state's robust outdoor recreation economy. However, the state was split on other nuanced views about tourism. Forty-two percent of respondents said they felt the state was becoming overcrowded from tourists, while the same percent disagreed with that statement. Compared to 2021 — one of the most crowded years for tourism in Montana — significantly fewer respondents (14%) felt overcrowding was an issue. On a local level, more residents felt their communities were becoming overcrowded by tourists, with 47% responding that during the summer travel season they were seeing too many visitors. While that represented a 7% increase from the 2023 survey, the report notes that the responses heavily varied by region. Yellowstone Country and Glacier Country, the tourism regions associated with their eponymous national parks, 72% and 67% of respondents, respectively, felt tourists were overcrowding their communities. In contrast, only 23% of Central Montana respondents and 12% from Missouri River Country had the same sentiment. The survey also asked respondents if they felt the overall quality of life for Montana residents would improve if tourism were to increase. Overall, 35% of Montanans said that quality of life would improve with increased tourism, compared to 38% who felt it would decrease. Interactive data from the 2024 Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research can be viewed here. As the region with historically the most negative attitude towards tourism, Glacier Country, officials working to promote western Montana have worked to change the way they market the area. The Glacier Country Regional Tourism Commission is a nonprofit that partners with Western Montana communities to 'welcome visitors and support livelihoods while protecting quality of life, extraordinary outdoor resources, and cultural heritage.' Following droves of pandemic-era tourists in 2021, Glacier Country Tourism held a series of community meetings to discuss how to shift their marketing approach to a more sustainable model for communities. A new long-term collaborative 'Destination Stewardship Strategy' was launched aimed at promoting smaller communities that wanted more visitors while pulling back from some mainstream destination marketing centered around Glacier National Park and Whitefish – core economic anchors for the region's tourism industry. Another set of community listening events was held in 2024, and Glacier Country Tourism President Racene Friede said many of the conversations showed their strategies had accomplished many of the goals. 'Tensions towards tourists were still a little high, but we came out of a lot of those community meetings feeling like one, we really heard what people were thinking deep down, and we also were able to make sure these communities felt like they were being heard,' Friede said. 'It felt very validating to the work we'd done after what we heard in 2021.' One nuance Friede said she discussed with many communities across Western Montana was the issue of overcrowding, which she said isn't perfectly correlated with increasing numbers of tourists. 'Those tourists are here, but they're also mixed with a lot of new residents, and that means there's more new people in the community, year round,' she said. 'Some audiences were really interesting to talk with when they extracted that particular point.' Recent census data shows that Kalispell has been one of the fastest growing cities in the nation since 2020, with most western counties seeing significant growth as well. While Friede said these regular community input sessions help shape long-term visitation and marketing strategies for the region, the Tourism Commission also responds to short term changes to visitor patterns. 'Weirdly,' she said, the region is looking at a shortfall of visitors at the moment, mostly from a decrease in Canadian travel due to inflammatory rhetoric between the federal government and the neighbors to the north. 'Over 50% of the businesses that replied to a survey I sent out said business is down compared to last year at this point,' Friede said. 'The closer you are to the border, the more businesses are feeling it, and they're really worried.' 'It's a whole different world this year than we expected to see,' she added. Friede said the commission recently launched a short-term marketing campaign targeting Canadian cities near Montana, promoting it as a weekend destination. 'I wasn't even thinking about that six weeks ago,' she said. 'But we're focused on people over politics, letting the Canadian people know that we're here when they're ready to visit, and we can't wait to welcome them back.' She said the organization being nimble and able to react and respond to different local needs throughout the year is essential. 'We can't control who's coming here, but we can control what role we play and how they impact our local communities,' Friede said.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
TSA: Costco cards do not count as REAL ID
June 9 (UPI) -- The U.S. Transportation Security Administration is warning travelers of an important piece of airport protocol: Costco membership cards do not count as REAL ID. The TSA, which began enforcing the requirement for REAL ID while traveling last month, said on social media that acceptable substitutes for the state-issued identification cards do not include wholesale warehouse memberships. "We love hot dogs & rotisserie chickens as much as the next person but please stop telling people their Costco card counts as a REAL ID because it absolutely does not," the TSA said on X. The post did not specify what people or entities were spreading the misinformation. Accepted substitutes for REAL ID at U.S. airports include passports, border crossing and permanent resident cards. The REAL ID act was passed in 2005, but implementation was delayed multiple times, most recently in 2022 due to backlogs stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic.
UPI
a day ago
- UPI
TSA: Costco cards do not count as REAL ID
The Transportation Security Administration issued a reminder to travelers on social media that Costco membership cards do not count as REAL ID. File Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI | License Photo June 9 (UPI) -- The U.S. Transportation Security Administration is warning travelers of an important piece of airport protocol: Costco membership cards do not count as REAL ID. The TSA, which began enforcing the requirement for REAL ID while traveling last month, said on social media that acceptable substitutes for the state-issued identification cards do not include wholesale warehouse memberships. "We love hot dogs & rotisserie chickens as much as the next person but please stop telling people their Costco card counts as a REAL ID because it absolutely does not," the TSA said on X. The post did not specify what people or entities were spreading the misinformation. Accepted substitutes for REAL ID at U.S. airports include passports, border crossing and permanent resident cards. The REAL ID act was passed in 2005, but implementation was delayed multiple times, most recently in 2022 due to backlogs stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic.
