Posted on Sat, May. 03, 2008

Tri-Rail riders may be facing no weekend service and a 60 percent cut in weekday trains in the fall, after the state Legislature failed Friday to pass a major commuter rail bill that jeopardizes funding for the South Florida train.

Tri-Rail has been battling for years to get the Legislature to approve a dedicated funding source so that it doesn't have to seek money annually from Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties.

Without dedicated funding, the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority, which operates Tri-Rail, is preparing for massive service cuts starting in October.

Tri-Rail executive director Joseph Giulietti said the agency would have to kill its entire Saturday, Sunday and holiday service -- about 15 trains a day -- and reduce weekday commuter service from 50 trains down to 20.

''We're up 28 percent over last year at this time. And it's because we're running 50 trains a day,'' said Tri-Rail spokeswoman Bonnie Arnold. ``It's going to devastate our riders.''

Two years ago, the Legislature passed a measure that would have allowed counties to hold a referendum for a $2 per day fee on most rental cars. But then-Gov. Jeb Bush vetoed it.

This year, the South Florida rental-car fee was attached to two bills. One would have allowed the three counties to tap an existing fee. The other would have raised a second $2 per-day rental car fee, but it was linked to a bill to buy 61 miles of rail line from CSX for a Central Florida commuter train.

Both bills passed the House but died without a vote in the Senate. Attempts to revive the controversial CSX bill continued throughout the day Friday, with the governor appealing to legislators to revive it.

But the deal-breaker was a clause that would have made the state liable for any Central Florida accidents caused by CSX.

Tri-Rail operates on a $59 million annual operating budget. Each of the three counties chips in an equal share -- approximately $7 million this year -- and the state matches that with another $21 million.

But Palm Beach County administrators have already announced that they will cut their share to the legal minimum, $4.23 million, starting with the fiscal year starting in October.

If Palm Beach follows through with the threatened cut, Broward and Miami-Dade counties would reduce their shares to the same level -- and the state would cut its matching share.

The bottom-line result: a loss of $18 million.

In 2006, Tri-Rail completed a four-year $440 million project that laid a second parallel ribbon of tracks along the entire 72-mile corridor from northern Palm Beach County to Miami.

The Federal Transit Administration provided 72 percent of the funds.

Staff writer Mary Ellen Klas and Chuck McGinness from the Palm Beach Post contributed to this article.