Healthcare workers and other essential employees are still able to commute to work in South Florida using mass transit like TriRail and Brightline trains.TriRail connects all three international airports in Palm Beach Broward and Miami Dade, but air travel is down and many people are telecommuting from home. Therefore, the ridership is down to less than 10,000 a day and that means there are less people on the trains. President Trump advised against gatherings of more than 10 people and at this time, according to Steve Abrams, the executive director of Tri-Rail the crowd-size is self regulating on the trains. In fact, trains and buses might actually be a good way to travel right now most are empty enough to make recommended social distancing easy.

Also, Brightline is a “touchless” train so there is little need for riders to use their hands during their commute. TriRail is working diligently all day to keep the trains clean, but riders are advised to wash their hands after taking a trip on a train.

“Re-doubling our efforts to disinfect our equipment, our trains, and our stations,” said Abrams.

Abrams says Tri-Rail has a train yard in Hialeah and West Palm Beach. He says the cleaning will be ongoing during the day.

“So we’ll actually send cleaning crews onto the trains through the course of the day to do touch up work. The major cleaning and disinfecting will take place in the yards,” he said.

Some passengers are also taking their own steps. While others say they appreciate the rail system’s efforts.
Listen to full interview with TriRail Executive Director Steve Abrams here.

On a daily bases, Tri-Rail has 15,000 riders. The train stops at 18 stations from Magnolia Park to Miami International Airport. In fact, in 2019 the rail system had their highest ridership ever. Now, Tri-Rail is taking a proactive approach to handling coronavirus concerns.

Brightline is increasing disinfecting their trains, adding additional hand sanitizer stations and using disposable cleaning