ORLANDO, Fla. — Brightline has completed construction in the first of the four construction zones in its expansion from West Palm Beach to Orlando, Fla., finishing the small but complicated 3.5-mile Zone 2 in and around Orlando International Airport.
“Our construction through OIA presented one of the most complex construction efforts of this entire project and our successful completion is a testament to partnership, teamwork and out-of-the-box thinking,” Michael Cegelis, Brightline executive vice president, development and construction, said in a press release. “The collective efforts of the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority, The Middlesex Corporation [the project’s general contractor] and our team resulted in the first-ever high speed rail corridor in one of the busiest airports in the nation.”
The Brightline video below outlines some of the project’s challenges and features, including dealing with roadways, active runways, and roadways used by airport equipment. As part of its agreement to build at the airport, Brightline constructed infrastructure including a new highway interchange and features designed to accommodate future transportation options such as light rail. Trains will operate at 35 mph in the airport area, then travel at 125 mph on new trackage being built to Cocoa, Fla., where they will join the existing Florida East Coast route south to West Palm Beach and Miami.
Overall, the 170-mile extension to Orlando is now 70% complete.
Seems some people aren’t ready for Brightline.
3 crashes in 4 days by cars going around the gates and getting crushed by those Chargers.
WPTV Reporting:
https://youtu.be/LU5k77gq4zU
You can see the one zone north of the station where they had to reduce the elevation of the tracks due to an FAA directive. Required unique drainage. That was just one of the issues/challenges Brightline had in engineering in and around OIA.
While they made a small light of it in the video, there was a lot of horse trading done to get the airport segment and the high speed segment to Cocoa laid down.
The toll highway entities, FDOT, airport authorities, the Mormons (Deseret Ranch), even Osceola County (which will get no rail) and Kissimmee got something in the deal. That is how broad and aggregate the whole arrangement was.
I have been in the station prior to the rails being laid, and it is a very nice place and I think travelers are going to really like it. But I am going to lose my prime parking spots at OIA. That new south garage made getting in and out easy. If Brightline gets popular, that garage will fill up fast.
Don’t want to see you lose prime parking but I do hope the ridership fills up fast. Hopefully it proves itself and then on to Tampa. Later straight North to Jacksonville from Cocoa, JAX to Tallahassee down to Tampa. I can dream.