As Brightline passengers queue up to catch their first train rides from the company’s new Boca Raton and Aventura stations Wednesday, management is focusing on its 170-mile extension to Orlando, and will not be opening any more stops in South Florida, according to its president.

On Tuesday, Brightline President Patrick Goddard, local politicians and other advocates celebrated the new stations’ openings with ribbon cuttings and a private train ride between the two cities in Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties. In both locations, the officials hailed the prospect of less traffic on area roadways, speedier rides between cities and a boost in tourism and economic activity that the rail service is expected to deliver.

“Who wants a train station for the holidays?” Goddard asked an enthusiastic crowd at the Boca Raton ceremonial opening. “Brightline has always been about connecting a region and ultimately a state in a way that brings us a little closer together. It makes it a little easier to do business across county lines. It makes it a little easier to get to work faster.”

“Today Boca Raton and Aventura, next year, Orlando,” he added.

Leaving cars behind

In an interview with reporters, he declined to give an opening date for the Orlando leg. But he said the extension is close to 90% complete and reiterated that the service would start next year.

“The relevance of intercity high-speed passenger rail increases as the distances that we can cover increases,” Goddard said, adding the rail line expects growing numbers of people to leave their cars at home. “As we start getting out to Orlando and giving the people the option to travel that 235-mile distance, we’re going to see a lot more people convert.”

He said that when the company last week announced the Wednesday station openings, “our website saw the most traffic it has ever seen. And the majority of that interest was in the Boca station.”

Boca Raton Mayor Scott Singer, perhaps one of South Florida’s most aggressive mayors who lobbied for a station in their cities, blew on an oversized whistle he pulled from his coat pocket and once aboard on Tuesday, announced the first departure of a Brightline train over the P.A. system.

“This is a game changer for our residents and businesses,” he told reporters. “Our residents are now connected to a major transportation network. Our businesses and cultural attractions are going to be able to draw visitors up and down the line. It’s transformative for companies to be able to expand their talent pool and base.”

Singer said companies the city is trying to recruit from the Northeast “now see the value proposition even more being in downtown Boca Raton.”

Even elected officials from adjacent towns and cities attended the two openings. Broward County Commissioner Michael Udine, whose district covers northwest Broward, said it’s an easy drive for many of his constituents to the Boca Raton station, and many are eager to make the trip.

The first paying passengers who climb aboard on Wednesday morning are likely to see workers still applying last-minute fixes and finishing touches to floors, sidewalks and even entry gates. But the two new stations are ready to serve customers, company officials said.

The two new stops will be the last in South Florida to join existing downtown stations in West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale and Miami, Goddard said.

“Boca and Aventura is it in South Florida,” he said. A much discussed location at PortMiami, the hub of the nation’s cruise line industry, “is still being looked at with the county so no advance on that for the moment.”

The dual openings serve as a precursor to the high-speed rail line’s much bigger event: the opening of its 170-mile extension from West Palm Beach to Orlando next year. The company has been conducting high-speed testing over rail beds at 79 mph in northern Brevard County, and 110 mph tests in Martin and St. Lucie counties. Tests at speeds of up to 125 mph will soon be conducted between Cocoa and Orlando, a stretch of rail line that is largely free of populated areas.

Decades-long hiatus

For Boca Raton, the local station’s opening marks the end of a 54-year period with no downtown passenger train service, It was in July 1968 that the final Florida East Coast Railway train pulled out of a decades-old station at 747 S. Dixie Highway on its way to Jacksonville.

That station, now a museum under redevelopment, is less than a mile to the south of the new Brightline stop, at 101 NW Fourth St. next to the city’s library.

Passenger trains first arrived in Boca Raton in 1895 after rail baron and industrialist Henry Flagler bought the Jacksonville, St. Augustine & Halifax River Railroad, the rail line that would become the Florida East Coast Railway, which carries today’s Brightline passenger trains and FEC freight trains.

For Aventura, the northeast Miami-Dade County city just south of Hallandale Beach and north of Miami, its new station at 19796 W. Dixie Highway potentially offers residents relief from the urban traffic that has become unbearable over the years. As with other South Florida cities, Aventura has attracted more permanent residents from out of state as well as new businesses that have sprouted around the popular Aventura Mall.

Still to come in the northeast Miami-Dade city south of Hallandale: a pedestrian bridge over Biscayne Boulevard from the station so that passengers can reach the mall.

Cheap introductory tickets

One-way tickets from Boca Raton and Aventura have been on sale for as low as $10 since late last week. They can be purchased on Brightline’s app or website (gobrightline.com).

“Brightline’s initial schedule for each new station will focus on peak morning and evening commuter service during weekdays,” according to the company website. “During non-peak hours and weekends, Brightline will provide northbound and southbound service approximately every other hour. Regular hourly and commuter service will continue in West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale and MiamiCentral.”

The stations’ interiors will emulate those of the existing downtown stations with their lounges, and eventual access to Brightline+, an array of local ground transportation options via Teslas, vans and rented bicycles.

But the Boca Raton station is slightly different than the others: it has no bar, is smaller than the downtown stations, and no escalators are required as passengers can walk in right off the street to the gates and train platform.

The privately owned rail line, which focuses on leisure and business travelers, resumed operations in early November 2021 after a lengthy layoff caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Both before and after the interruption, leaders of various South Florida cities aggressively lobbied Brightline to place stations in their towns, arguing that their cities would generate business commuter traffic and become popular with tourists who would ride the trains.

“When Brightline was set up, we were wondering from the beginning, ‘why weren’t they thinking of Boca Raton as a separate center of commerce and tourism,’ because it is,” Singer said earlier this year. “We have more than half of the corporate headquarters in all of Palm Beach County — more than West Palm. And we are centrally located.”

“There are a lot of reasons people will want to come here and I think the residents understood the value of being able to commute down to Miami, and to West Palm without getting on I-95,” Singer said.

Staff writer David Lyons can be reached at dvlyons@SunSentinel.com