Brightline MiamiCentral Station is a new kind of urban gateway, elevating 235 miles of legacy rail into a 21st-century, privately funded intercity system anchored in downtown Miami. This tour explores how SOM’s design transforms an abandoned five-block rail corridor into a civic hub that combines high-speed rail, regional transit, and dense transit-oriented development.

Attendees will experience the station’s multi-level rail infrastructure, vertical circulation, and passenger amenities first-hand, along with the office and residential overbuilds that stack city life above active tracks. The tour highlights how MiamiCentral reuses existing rail corridors to advance low-carbon mobility, reduce car trips, and catalyze walkable, mixed-use growth across South Florida’s downtowns.Participants will examine design strategies for shade, storm resilience, and thermal comfort in a hot, humid, flood-prone coastal environment, and how the station integrates with Tri-Rail, Metrorail, Metromover, and the surrounding street grid. Drawing on almost eight and a half years of service between Miami, West Palm Beach, and Fort Lauderdale—with newer stations such as Aventura extending the network—Brightline co-hosts and SOM’s design team will share how the system has reshaped travel behavior, public space, and development patterns across the region. The session will equip attendees with transferable strategies for future transit-oriented projects.

Lunch is included on this tour.

TOUR FEE: $60

TRANSPORTATION DETAILS:

• Load in time from hotel: 12:00 PM
• Bus departs hotel to Brightline Aventura Train Station: 12:30 PM
• Depart Brightline Aventura Train Station on Train 1:02 PM 
• Arrive at Brightline MiamiCentral Station 1:24 PM
• Tour start time: 1:30 PM 
• Tour end time: 2:30 PM
• Depart MiamiCentral Station on train 3:05 PM
• Arrive at Brightline Aventura Train Station 3:22 PM
• Bus returns to hotel: 4:00 PM