Palm Beach County is finally getting a little love from Tri-Rail. You see prior to this announcement Palm Beach International Airport had been the only South Florida airport with no direct connection to Tri-Rail. In reality none of the airports have direct service but in Dade and Broward there is shuttle service on a people mover to the terminals. Now a similar service will be provided in Palm Beach County, in the form of a shuttle that will take only 10 minutes to get to the terminal. Every train that stops at the West Palm Beach station will be met with a shuttle at the same time. Right now there is a Palm Tran bus service that runs every 30 minutes. While this is an improvement and makes all airports equal in terms of public transportation, it is truly a band aid. We all know that the trains must eventually go directly to the airports without shuttle service, people movers, etc. for people to truly embrace it on a large scale. This type of mass transportation needs to happen not just to the airports but to many other places of interest, such as stadiums, ports, colleges, etc. This lack of mass transportation is the single biggest obstacle to growth in the region, and also worsens the traffic problem while we grow. It is encouraging to know that this has been addressed in a long term plan (the Seven50 plan, we wrote about it when it was announced) for the region but will it come soon enough? We are growing so quickly that by the time mass transportation catches up it could be too late. There are already dire traffic conditions in Dade and parts of Broward. With thousands of new homes on the way it promises to get much worse before it can get better. We will see how things unfold in the next few years, hopefully money and efforts will be stepped up towards the expansion of mass transit. It has to if everything is going to work. As always thanks for reading and have a great day.
No comments:
Post a Comment