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P3s and Private Funding: Back to the Future

Representatives of rail projects in Florida and Colorado spoke at “Privately Funded Intercity Rail,” June 21, about their return to an earlier era of public transportation: ­private funding and public-private partnerships (P3s).

Michael W. Lefevre, manager of operations planning for All Aboard Florida in Coral Gables, said his organization’s Brightline will be the nation’s first private intercity passenger railroad when it enters service next year from Miami to Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, extending soon after to Orlando. Brightline will operate primarily on existing Florida East Coast Railway freight tracks, he said, and is being financed through a mix of debt and equity.

Construction is underway on Brightline’s stations in West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale and MiamiCentral, which will also serve South Florida Regional Transportation Authority Tri-Rail commuter trains and Miami-Dade Transit’s Metrorail, Metromover and Metrobus. According to Lefevre, the stations are in “legacy locations” in walkable parts of their cities and also will be hubs of TOD.

Two employees of Jacobs in Westminster, CO—Jane E. Donovan, deputy manager for North Metro, and Jennifer Whiteside, structural engineering manager—reported on the North Metro commuter rail project in Denver, originally part of the Regional Transportation District’s (RTD) FasTracks plan. When costs began rising, Donovan said, RTD looked for alternatives, entering into a partnership with BNSF freight rail. The line became part of the Eagle P3 project in 2011. It will ultimately cover 18.5 miles with eight stations, Donovan said, with 12.5 miles and six stations currently under construction. Service is expected to begin in 2018.

Jaime Lopez, senior project manager with RS&H in Miami, said P3s can accelerate implementation of rail projects by using innovative funding and financing—important in ­locations where urban congestion is increasing at an unsustainable rate.

Lopez added details about TOD at the MiamiCentral site, which will include several high-rise towers on nine acres owned by the railroad adjacent to the government center. Another Miami construction project, Brickell CityCentre, will integrate an existing Metromover station into a site containing four towers and more than $1 billion in private development. Future projects for the region include light rail lines to Miami Beach and Broward County and a streetcar.
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