Writer: Ryan Gandolfo
2 min read October 2023 — The city of Fort Lauderdale has doubled down on efforts to build a tunnel for commuter rail to improve mobility in an increasingly congested downtown area.
At the State of the City 2023 address on Wednesday night, Mayor Dean Trantalis announced plans to pursue a tunnel project, following a prolonged period where the city and key stakeholders failed to compromise on alternative transportation infrastructure options, including an 80-foot, mile-long bridge that would run through Historic Sistrunk, the city’s oldest African American neighborhood.
“Let’s face it, the tunnel remains the only viable answer,” Trantalis told the audience at the city’s half-century-old Parker Playhouse. “So much has been invested in our downtown, so many people have moved downtown, and so much has focused on the rebuilding of an area that has long been dormant.”
He noted that the current rail track that runs through Fort Lauderdale has “divided our communities and a bridge would perpetuate long standing racial divisions.”
According to Trantalis, the city has teamed up with a group of international firms to plan the build-out of a cost-efficient tunnel. More importantly, Brightline, which recently opened its long-anticipated Orlando Station, Florida East Coast Industries (FECI) and parent company Fortress Investment Group are supporting the endeavor. FECI is a leading global investor with more than $50 billion in assets under management and two primary business lines in rail and real estate. The mayor did not disclose further details on the type of support during his speech, but referenced the need to act fast to secure federal funding.
“We only have a short window in which we can obtain critical funding from the Biden administration’s infrastructure program,” said Trantalis, noting that the city is actively engaged with U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg and other key officials to navigate the application process.
The United States Department of Transportation also awarded $1 million to the city to “show the benefits of constructing a tunnel, connecting communities and eliminating the divisions of the past,” he announced.
The city recently had ‘tunnel vision’ when Elon Musk’s The Boring Company sent a proposal to Fort Lauderdale for a project, called Las Olas Loop, according to a post by Trantalis on X (formerly Twitter) in June 2021. By January 2023, multiple reports indicated a degree of skepticism, including a Wall Street Journal article calling Musk’s company out for “ghosting cities.”
While The Boring Company’s proposal got buried, multimodal transportation is having a moment in South Florida after the September grand opening of Brightline’s Orlando Station. The high-speed passenger train service projects to have a $6.4 billion direct economic impact to Florida’s economy over the next eight years, according to Brightline’s website. Additionally, electric shuttle services like Circuit have played an expanding role in moving people around the city, reducing the need for cars.
“In South Florida, we have a peninsula, so commuter rail is important. It’s about building the infrastructure, not just for today,” Phil Purcell, CEO of Marine Industries Association of South Florida told Invest:. “Our elected officials are doing a good job addressing it, trying to look past today and look toward 40 or 50 years out.”
READ MORE: The Orlando Brightline station is open and ready for business
