A 37 mile leg between Orlando International Airport and Cocoa Beach is now under construction
It’s past the approval, permitting and debate stage.
There’s actual equipment out on the sides of State Road 528 moving earth and preparing the foundation for a new leg of the Virgin Trains USA Florida route.
Previously known as Brightline and, before that, as All Aboard Florida – Virgin Trains USA is the first steps of a high speed rail that upon completion will connect Miami to Orlando, and maybe beyond.
“It’s like winning the Super Bowl or something, to get under construction. It’s hugely gratifying to see earth moving and physical construction underway,” Michael Cegelis said.
Planning for the Cocoa-to-Orlando route is aided in part because the Central Florida Expressway Authority and Greater Orlando Aviation Authority have hoped, for more than a decade — since before the Virgin Trains USA plan was proposed — that some sort of passenger railroad would take that route. So the airport already has a train station and some railroad infrastructure. It already has one interchange that was designed and built with room for a railroad to pass through it all.
