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9/16/2025
Yesterday, the American Railway Engineering and Maintenance-of-Way Association (AREMA) and Dr. William W. Hay Award for Excellence Review Committee named a Brightline Florida project the winner of the 2025 William W. Hay Award.
During the general session at AREMA's annual conference and exhibition in Indianapolis, association officials bestowed the award to Brightline Florida and HNTB Corp. representatives for the East-West Connector project in central Florida.
AREMA created the award in 1999 to honor rail infrastructure projects that best address safety, innovation and service performance reliability. The annual award is named after the late William Walter Hay, a longtime AREMA contributor and professor of railway civil engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
The 38-mile East-West Connector was the last piece of Florida Brightline's passenger-rail line between Orlando and Miami. Riders now can travel from the Orlando International Airport to Miami in three hours and 25 minutes. The project, which included 20 grade separations, involved more than 700 workers.
The passenger-rail service has registered over 900,000 riders in its first seven months, Brightline and HNTB representatives said while accepting the award. The service is expected to take 3 million motor vehicles off Florida highways annually.
AREMA and Hay award officials chose the Brightline project from among six submissions this year. The project is the 27th winner of a Hay award since 1999.