Tri-Rail under fire after not revealing ‘serious’ defect with Miami station

In April, the company behind the Brightline rail service was finishing up a government contract to build a platform for Tri-Rail trains in downtown Miami when Tri-Rail engineers flagged a “serious construction defect” on the project.

The defect: the platform Brightline built was too narrow in some parts to allow a Tri-Rail train to pass by without clipping the steps that form the outer edge of the rail cars.

Six months later, Tri-Rail trains still can’t fit in the platform, which the tax-funded rail agency says may have even bigger problems — including a ramp that may be too weak to handle Tri-Rail trains. A Tri-Rail engineer also claims concrete cracks are forming on the platform even before service begins on a $70 million downtown depot that was supposed to open in 2017 but now is faced with more uncertainty than ever.

Tri-Rail executive director Steven Abrams, a former Boca Raton mayor who served as Tri-Rail’s volunteer chairman when the Brightline station deal was ratified in 2015, said more studies are needed to address the alleged defects around the platform. The problems became public last week with the release of an updated report on the platform’s problems.

While the April 26 report by Tri-Rail said it was “imperative to run a test train into the station,” Abrams said the agency still hasn’t secured the technology needed to comply with rail safety requirements from another company that manages the privately owned tracks used to access the Brightline hub at the 600 block of Northwest First Avenue.

“We need to update our software, which we’re in the process of doing,” said Abrams, a former lawyer and Palm Beach County commissioner. “We’re in discussion with our vendor for how long it takes to do that.”

On Monday, Brightline — the for-profit rail company already under contract to build an Aventura station for Miami-Dade County and negotiating for funding for a larger county line — again declined to discuss the alleged defects with the station funded with city and county transit and property taxes. The issue with trains not fitting became public Friday at a Tri-Rail board meeting, when Abrams revealed the problems to directors.

One of those board members, Miami-Dade Commissioner Raquel Regalado, released a memo on Monday slamming Tri-Rail management and urging the county to reconsider interest in having Tri-Rail operate a Miami-to-Aventura commuter line that Brightline is negotiating to build for Miami-Dade.

In the memo to fellow county commissioners and Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, Regalado states that, “incredibly,” problems with the station revealed to the Tri-Rail board last week were identified in a Tri-Rail report produced in the spring.

“Given the reprehensible and irresponsible lack of basic oversight and transparency demonstrated by the current administration” of Tri-Rail, Regalado wrote, “we as the Miami-Dade County Board of County Commission should explore other options” for running the proposed Northeast Corridor commuter line.

Abrams sent an email Friday apologizing for keeping silent on the problems with the Miami station until now, calling it a “lapse” caused by his interest in getting firm answers on next steps. On Monday, he said Tri-Rail shouldn’t be blamed for Brightline not building the platform to specifications.

“We did have an oversight role,” he said. “But we’re not pouring the concrete ... I can assure the public, we are working diligently on these fixes. They are complicated and costly. They are not the fault of Tri-Rail.”

More analysis was recommended in a Dec. 2 engineers report by the firm Railroad Consultants that Tri-Rail made public Friday with more details on why the trains won’t fit. The report laid out other potential problems, including questions about the weight standard used for a railway ramp leading to the station and concrete cracks “that likely began due to improper construction means and methods.”

In 2015, Miami and Miami-Dade agreed to fund about $43 million of the $70 million construction cost for the second-story platform Brightline offered to build in its new Miami Central rail complex and finally give tax-funded Tri-Rail a presence within city limits.

Brightline received the public dollars through Tri-Rail, which signed agreements with local government to get the project built.

The 2015 agreement with Miami-Dade calls on the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority, the official name for Tri-Rail’s board, to exercise “all responsibilities of the owner under the design and construction contract ... including construction administration [and] inspections.” When Miami-Dade approved the funding, Abrams, then a sitting Palm Beach commissioner, was there to represent Tri-Rail as its chairman.

According to the April 26 report, the platform Brightline constructed using mostly public dollars included some “bumps” that were too high for the steps that passengers use to step down from the Tri-Rail trains.

“It also represents a serious construction defect because [Tri-Rail] vehicles ... cannot travel along the platform tracks with this condition without causing damage to the vehicles,” the report read.

This story was originally published December 13, 2021 at 7:53 PM.