Tri-Rail Is Learning to Pay Its Own Way — and South Florida Is the Winner

Two stories landed in the same July week that, read together, reveal something genuinely new about how South Florida funds and uses its transit network: the region is starting to treat rail corridors as assets, not just expenses.

Tri-Rail's New FDOT Deal Turns Station Land Into a Revenue Engine

On July 29, 2026, Miami Today reported that the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority (SFRTA) — which operates Tri-Rail — is finalizing a memorandum of understanding with the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) under which FDOT will lease station properties it owns to SFRTA for 99.5 years, effectively a fee-simple transfer, so that SFRTA can build transit-oriented development (TOD) on those sites and charge fees that flow directly back to the railroad. SFRTA Board Chair and Miami-Dade Commissioner Raquel Regalado described the deal as the foundation of a plan to make Tri-Rail measurably less dependent on volatile annual state appropriations.

• FDOT's annual funding contribution will decline over a 10-year transition window ending by 2037, per former SFRTA executive director Steve Abrams.
• SFRTA is also exploring a Transportation Improvement District (TID) over the entire 80-mile corridor — capturing value from development near all 19 stations, most of which currently pay no property taxes.
• Only two Tri-Rail stations have active TODs today; the 99.5-year lease framework is designed to unlock the rest.
• Tri-Rail recorded 4.5 million riders in 2025, its strongest year in recent memory, giving developers a real ridership case to underwrite against.
• A new fare collection system and county-based fare zones are in development, which will improve revenue capture at the system's largely open-access stations.

What makes this structurally interesting is the sequence: SFRTA secures long-term site control first, then layers TOD fees and a TID on top. That ordering matters — it gives private developers the legal certainty they need to sign ground leases, and it gives SFRTA a funding stream that grows as the corridor densifies, rather than shrinking every time Tallahassee rewrites a budget line.

The Underline's Final Mile Into Coral Gables Is Closing the Loop

At exactly the moment Tri-Rail is rethinking how it earns revenue, the region's most ambitious active-transportation project is wrapping up. The Underline Phase 3 — a 7.36-mile segment running from SW 19th Avenue near the Vizcaya Metrorail station all the way to Dadeland South Metrorail Station through Coral Gables, South Miami, and unincorporated Miami-Dade County — is expected to complete construction in 2026. The $109 million phase threads together eight Metrorail stations and, as of this summer, is in final installation mode: the City of Coral Gables confirms that Segment 6 of the M-Path, between LeJeune Road and Granada Boulevard, is closed through Summer 2026 for the installation of bike and pedestrian trails, plantings, lighting, furnishings, and amenities.

• The full 10-mile Underline, when complete, will sit within a 10-minute walk of 107,000 residents.
• Phase 3 adds roughly 1,800 new trees, 350,000 native plants, and 24 microforests along the corridor.
• Separated bike and pedestrian paths, improvements at more than 30 intersections, public Wi-Fi, and Dark Sky-compliant LED lighting are all part of the final build.
• Funding comes from Miami-Dade County, the City of Coral Gables, the City of Miami, FDOT, and the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), along with the Knight Foundation and private contributions.
• At Dadeland South, The Underline connects directly to the South Dade Trail, creating a continuous non-motorized corridor extending toward Florida City.

The Underline was always about more than recreation. By making the walk and bike ride to a Metrorail station safer, shadier, and more pleasant, it lowers the friction cost of leaving a car at home — the behavioral step that transit ridership ultimately depends on.

Together, These Two Projects Show What Self-Sustaining Transit Infrastructure Looks Like

The Tri-Rail TOD strategy and The Underline share a logic: invest in the land and the corridor around the train, and the train pays for itself more easily over time. Station-area development generates lease revenue and tax base. Active-transportation infrastructure generates ridership. Ridership justifies more service. More service attracts more development. The loop closes.

South Florida has long been accused of treating transit as a charity rather than an asset. What's shifting in mid-2026 is the language. SFRTA Chair Regalado is talking about fee income, 99-year ground leases, and TIDs — the vocabulary of real estate finance applied to rail. Meg Daly and Friends of The Underline built a public-private partnership that mobilized federal, state, county, city, and philanthropic dollars around a single corridor. Neither story is a lucky accident; both are the product of years of patient coalition-building.

When Phase 3 of The Underline opens fully, a cyclist will be able to ride from Brickell's Miami River waterfront all the way to Dadeland on separated paths, touching eight Metrorail stations along the way, and eventually connect to a trail system reaching south toward Homestead. When the SFRTA-FDOT lease agreements are executed, Tri-Rail will begin the slow, deliberate work of turning underused parking lots around suburban stations into the kind of walkable, transit-served neighborhoods that generate their own operating revenue.

That's not a transit fantasy. That's a construction site and a term sheet — and South Florida is building both at once.