The proposed corridor will connect several of floridas largest metropolitan areas (see figure 1 below)

The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) awarded a $500,000 Cooperative Agreement to the State of Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) under the Federal-State Partnership for Intercity Passenger Rail program (CFDA 20.326). The purpose of this award is to support the development of a Service Development Plan (SDP) for a proposed passenger rail corridor that would connect several of Florida's largest metropolitan areas, including Jacksonville, Orlando, Melbourne, Port St. Lucie, and Miami. The project will involve establishing a project performance plan, developing existing planning and development materials, creating a statement of work, an approved project schedule, and an approved project budget. The outcome of this project will be a detailed project description to enable the next phase of the SDP process for this critical intercity passenger rail corridor in Florida.

There are two alignments for the corridor, which have the potential to be used independently or in various combinations. One alignment would run parallel to the atlantic coastline and is currently used by the national passenger railroad corporation (AMTRAK) long-distance passenger trains connecting florida with the northeast U.S. The other would run inland between jacksonville and cocoa and is currently used by a combination of tracks owned by florida east coast railway (FEC) and by BRIGHTLINE trains florida, LLC (BRIGHTLINE). Both alignments are anticipated to serve miami, orlandos metropolitan statistical area (MSA), jacksonville, west palm beach, and fort lauderdale. The coastal alignment is anticipated to serve saint augustine, daytona beach, cocoa, and port ST lucie. The inland alignment is anticipated to serve palatka, deland, lakeland, okeechobee, and sebring. There is an option to use the I-4 corridor between orlando and lakeland instead of the existing rail corridor. Using service development plan (SDP) SOW framework, the corridor sponsor will develop a project performance plan (task 1.1), existing planning and development materials (task 2.1), statement of work (task 2.2), approved project schedule (task 2.3), approved project budget (task 2.4). The outcome of this project will be the project description for CID step 2, to perform the necessary work to complete an SDP. The proposed corridor would serve the jacksonville, orlando, melbourne, port ST lucie, and miami metro areas, as well as rural communities in between.