Among these was an award to the Florida Department of Transportation of a Corridor Identification & Development (or Corridor ID) grant to begin studying a passenger rail corridor between Jacksonville, Orlando and Miami. According to the FRA, “The proposed corridor would connect Jacksonville, Orlando and Miami, FL. The corridor would provide new or enhanced service on one or more existing alignments. The corridor sponsor would enter Step 1 of the program to develop a scope, schedule, and cost estimate for preparing, completing, or documenting its service development plan.” Up to $500,000 will be allocated for this rail planning effort. An additional $500,000 will be allocated to develop a scope, schedule, and cost estimate for preparing, completing, or documenting the service development plan for the corridor between the three cities. That corridor would provide new or enhanced service on one or more existing alignments, and potentially a new alignment between Orlando International Airport and Tampa.
The start of this process represents an opportunity for Jacksonville to take a leadership role in developing passenger rail for North Florida.
Corridor ID
The Corridor ID program is part of a national effort under the Biden-Harris administration to develop a pipeline of intercity passenger rail projects. That means turning mere ideas for rail services into real plans for how these services would be constructed and operated, ready to be built with future funding from the Federal-State Partnership for Intercity Passenger Rail program, which has already funded high-speed rail projects like Brightline West and California High-Speed Rail.
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