Do not take Tri Rail!

Good morning all,

As a first time Tri Rail customer I figured I would share my experience attempting to take the train northbound from the Fort Lauderdale Airport. I arrived at the shuttle bus stop at 11am, excited for a quick and easy transfer from the airport to the Tri Rail station (boy was I wrong). Instead of shuttles arriving every 15-20 minutes, I waited for 40 minutes until the next shuttle arrived. Keep in mind that I merely started waiting for the shuttle at 11am so God only knows how long it had always been since the last shuttle had left. Anyway, after waiting for an exorbitant amount of time, the shuttle bus took forever to get out of the airport. This wasn’t because of traffic but rather the drivers inability to assist a handicapped lady to get on the bus. Since so many people had been waiting for the shuttle, it was packed shoulder to shoulder with no room for her and her chair. After fumbling around the driver finally began to drive us towards the station. As we made are way down Griffin Rd I could hear the rumblings of the passengers as they looked at the schedule. The northbound train was set to leave at 12:02 and the current time was 11:55. “Surely, they would hold the Train for their own shuttle bus services,” we naively thought. Upon our arrival at the station, myself and all the northbound riders sprinted towards the train which was performing its last call on the platform, the time was approximately 12:00. With so many of us trying to get on the train and so little time, we ran past the ticket machines and attempted to board the train. The Tri rail employees promptly rejected us and demanded we pay for tickets before boarding. We asked if they would hold the train so that we could buy tickets, but they refused and told us that it wasn’t their problem. I ran to the nearest ticket kiosk and feverishly tried to make my way through the menus to get a one way ticket, but as I was in the process of paying for the ticket, the train left the station. Defeated I looked at the schedule to find that the next northbound train would not arrive until 1pm a full hour wait.

Having already waited for an hour, only to get told to kick rocks, I called for an Uber which picked me up within 2 minutes. Before I left I asked a ticket attendant for the customer service number. On the phone I was told that there is nothing they can do because the trains won’t wait for the shuttle. I was told that if I wanted to get on the train I should have been there 15-20 minutes before the train left. No explanation was given for the lack of shuttles.

It’s bad enough that I wasted an hour of my time and had to buy an uber, but to be told that it was my fault and my problem really put a bad taste in my mouth. This is why people are willing to pay 5x the price to ride the Brightline, they would never treat a paying customer that way.

In conclusion, if you are considering riding the Tri Rail from FLL, DO NOT DO IT, you will get screwed and they will blame you!