Brightline rail service may extend to Jacksonville

The company that is preparing to launch passenger rail service next year between Miami and Orlando via Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach eventually may extend the service to Jacksonville.

All Aboard Florida (AAF), which expects to launch its Brightline passenger rail service by mid-2017, has formed an affiliated company called AAF Jacksonville Segment LLC.

AAF formed the affiliated company to secure rights to run a passenger rail service on the Florida East Coast Railway line between Jacksonville and Cocoa, located east of Orlando in the Cape Canaveral area.

AAF will be looking for ways to expand the Brightline rail service as soon as it begins, according to Mike Reininger, the company’s president and chief development officer.

If AAF does extend Brightline to Jacksonville, it would add an additional mode at a new multimodal transit center scheduled to open in 2019.

The Jacksonville Transportation Authority has committed $40 million to start construction of JAXIS (the Jacksonville Intermodal Station) next January.

The JAXIS site is across the street from the FEC railroad.

The transportation authority and Jacksonville’s Downtown Investment Authority are working together on a master development plan for the surrounding LaVilla neighborhood. [ModernCities.com] – Mike Seemuth