45-Minute Trip From Tampa To Disney To Be Reality On Brightline Train

TAMPA, FL — After touring Brightline high-speed rail facilities, which currently extend from Miami to Orlando, Tampa Mayor Jane Castor announced that Brightline has definite plans on its drawing board to extend its rail to Tampa at a station to be built in Ybor City.

On Monday, Castor, Tampa City Council member Gwendolyn Henderson, Tampa Bay Partnership CEO Bemetra Simmons, Hillsborough County Commissioner Gwen Myers and other local leaders attended the Brightline Tampa Delegation Tour.

The Brightline high-speed rail train from Miami to Orlando officially launched on Sept. 22. Now officials of the privately owned rail company are eyeing an extension of the rail line to Tampa.

“The route is already laid out from Orlando to Tampa,” Castor said. “It will basically go down the middle of I-4 and then come in to the Ybor City area, where the Brightline station will be located," Castor said.

The extension is currently under review by the Florida Department of Transportation but could conceivably become a reality by 2028.

"It’s a big part of our future, right? We love Tampa. Tampa’s the next big market for us. You connect Tampa to the rest of this system and suddenly 75 percent of the state is within close proximity to a Brightline train. We like that a lot," Brightline CEO Mike Reininger said at a news conference.

Last year, Brightline received a $15.9 million federal grant for preliminary designs for an Orlando to Tampa route.

The rail line, which would include a station in Lakeland, would take three years to complete and cost an estimated $1 billion. Brightline has already applied for a grant from the Federal Railroad Administration.

Reininger said the high-speed rail line is being built in phases with the connection to Tampa being the third and final phase.

The 85-mile rail extension between Orlando and Tampa, tentatively called the Sunshine Corridor, would follow along Interstate 4 state-owned right of way.

The train would run at speeds of 125 mph between Tampa and Orlando. Depending on traffic, the current drive time from Orlando to Tampa is 1 1/2 to 2 hours. The high-speed rail could turn a trip from Tampa to Disney World into a 45-minute ride with no traffic jams.

Castor said the Ybor City train station would be similar to the Brightline station in West Palm Beach. While visiting the West Palm Beach station, which is already attracting news business to the West Palm Beach area around the station.

“To see the development that occurred, it was almost as if they had inflated an entire community right there around that Brightline station,” Castor said. “They had a senior high-rise living facility; they had a mall; they had restaurants; they had high-rise, market-rate condominiums. It was really spectacular the draw of that transportation solution to West Palm.”

She hopes a station in Ybor City will help fast-track development plans for Ybor City such as Gas Worx, a major mixed-use development now under construction in Ybor City that will bring more than 300 units of affordable housing to Tampa, the biggest private investment in affordable housing in the city’s history.

See related:

• Gas Worx To Transform Industrial Property Into Walkable Development
• Mass Transit Projects For Tampa To Be Fast-Tracked With Federal Grant

Castor said the new Ybor station would be built near the Ybor City TECO Streetcar stop so commuters would have a quick link with downtown Tampa.

She said there are still a lot of issues to be addressed in relation to the rail extension, including workforce development, housing affordability, sustainability and resiliency.

“I would say, on the optimistic side, in four or five years, hopefully, we’ll have passengers traveling between Orlando and Tampa,” Castor said.