ORLANDO, Fla. — Floridians will soon have a quick way to get from Orlando to Miami without hitting the highway.
The high-speed rail service Brightline is on track to open its Orlando station in 2023 with routes to existing stations in Miami, Aventura, Fort Lauderdale, Boca Raton and West Palm Beach.
While we don't have an exact date for the opening, we can expect trips to start sometime this spring to early summer.
Brightline has shared that the period between April and June is its targeted time frame for starting service over the new 170-mile segment between West Palm Beach and Orlando, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports.
The new 37,350-square-foot station, located at Orlando International Airport, features a futuristic design with luxury amenities.
With three different stories, it will have retail shopping, a bar with hand-crafted cocktails and light bites, and panoramic views of the oncoming trains.
The design will also spark a bit of nostalgia with a flip-flap message board displaying updated train schedules, boarding times, news of the day and other announcements.
Brightline Orlando station renderings
Most importantly, the new railway will get guests across the state in record time, with the route from Orlando to Miami taking just over three hours.
“This world-class train station continues our mission of transforming train travel in America,” Patrick Goddard, president at Brightline, said in a release. “We have carefully thought through each detail of this station to ensure that it exceeds the expectations of the modern traveler.”
This project is part of Brightline's Phase 2 expansion into Central Florida, which includes the Tampa extension. That highly-anticipated route is still in the works.