Sunrail Commuter Rail System

[HeartofFlorida]

Originally Posted by Dale

F*** Amtrak. Boycott it.

Amtrak threatens to stop Central Florida Service

I guess Central Floridians prefer SunRail over Amtrak. It's only 6 trains a day.

This entire fiasco is ridiculous.

[HARTride 2012]

Agreed. this liability mess always seems to kill one project or another. Sheesh!

[I-275westcoastfl]

Everybody wants their pockets filled..

[kevinkagy]

Originally Posted by HARTride 2012

Agreed. this liability mess always seems to kill one project or another. Sheesh!

Agreed. And it's really delaying our state's transit progress. Here in Miami, Tri-Rail's second commuter line along the FEC corridor has been delayed numerous times because of FEC's liability issues. It's a mess.

[TampaMike]

What does this mean for Tampa and Miami though? Do their routes get nixed as well due to this whole fiasco?

[HeartofFlorida]

Originally Posted by TampaMike

What does this mean for Tampa and Miami though? Do their routes get nixed as well due to this whole fiasco?

This remains to be seen but the initial indicators point to YES.

[Lakelander]

Miami could be served by Amtrak's proposed FEC line. Don't know about Tampa.

[TampaMike]

Originally Posted by HeartofFlorida

This remains to be seen but the initial indicators point to YES.

Screw SunRail then. No offense to Orlando, but Tampa should not be affected on something that doesn't even affect them in the first place. If it was up to Amtrak or SunRail, I'm going with Amtrak.

[SkyDiveJunkee]

^It shouldn't be one or the other, and it cannot be for the future of Orlando and Florida. Tampa needs to get it's act together on mass transit too, regardless of what Amtrak has to say about it. This does affect Tampa in the long run.

[HeartofFlorida]

Originally Posted by TampaMike

Screw SunRail then. No offense to Orlando, but Tampa should not be affected on something that doesn't even affect them in the first place. If it was up to Amtrak or SunRail, I'm going with Amtrak.

Originally Posted by SkyDiveJunkee

^It shouldn't be one or the other, and it cannot be for the future of Orlando and Florida. Tampa needs to get it's act together on mass transit too, regardless of what Amtrak has to say about it. This does affect Tampa in the long run.

Amtrak could always re-route down the "S" line.

[TampaMike]

Originally Posted by SkyDiveJunkee

^It shouldn't be one or the other, and it cannot be for the future of Orlando and Florida. Tampa needs to get it's act together on mass transit too, regardless of what Amtrak has to say about it. This does affect Tampa in the long run.

What I mean is that if both sides can't come up with a resolution on this, and Amtrak says "Hey, it's either cut us the deal or let us go", I'm not going to side with SunRail. Tampa has done nothing wrong in this matter and I don't see why Tampa should be affected by this. Although I would believe that Pam Iorio is on the phone at least sometime this week calling up both sides and pushing for an agreement.

[TampaMike]

Originally Posted by HeartofFlorida

Amtrak could always re-route down the "S" line.

Alright, we got a deal!

[kevinkagy]

I don't see what liability issue there is here. Amtrak shares the CSX line with Tri-Rail in Miami, why can't it share lines with Sunrail in Orlando?

[TampaMike]

Originally Posted by kevinkagy

I don't see what liability issue there is here. Amtrak shares the CSX line with Tri-Rail in Miami, why can't it share lines with Sunrail in Orlando?

I think its more of the deal part than the liability. They want to make sure that they aren't liable for any crash, like CSX has as planned.

[SkyDiveJunkee]

^Or they just feel a bit left out of it all. Last I heard they weren't even a contender for High Speed Rail. I'm sure this is a reaction to that.

[ukiyo]

That commuter line is terrible..why don't they have another line that goes east-west? For example..along colonial? This is the problem with US rail systems, they never make the network adequate enough, it fails to get enough riders and then the conservatives will point at it and say "see, mass transit fails".

For example in Japan almost everysingle rail system in our country started off almost bankrupt because they made so many lines and plans at once, but they knew that the riders will come. And now you have all of suburban Tokyo, and Tokyo proper itself using rail and the rail companies are making large profits. If Tokyo did not expand the rail lines into the suburbs the whole system would not have worked. Making just one single line in the Orlando area will not work! There needs to be more connectivity..

I am aware of the population, and density differences are gigantic making the comparison far fetched but I'm sure you can see my point. Even if there is not a large amount of riders currently in say a east west line (which I would disagree with just drive on Colonial) they will come eventually in the future.

[SkyDiveJunkee]

^That commuter line is not terrible, it runs through the areas with the highest population density in the metro on a North-South axis.

I agree that more needs to be done to connect East/West, as does the metro, which has planned other initiatives that you can find online with a simple Google search.

http://www.sunrail.com/otherinitiatives.asp

[ukiyo]

When I say terrible I don't mean terrible. What I was trying to say if that if theyre going to fund a commuter rail system they need to make more lines at once. Just making one line, then seeing how it works will not cut it. The entire system needs more connectivity right at its inception if it wants to work.

Another reason I say it's terrible is because I won't be able to use it! (East Orlando).

[jzquince69]

Originally Posted by HeartofFlorida

Amtrak threatens to stop Central Florida Service

I guess Central Floridians prefer SunRail over Amtrak. It's only 6 trains a day.

This entire fiasco is ridiculous.

the last sentence in that article states it will not threaten current rail service throughout the state, but may threaten east coast rail service (proposed?).

Nice misleading article to create drama. gotta love the media.


as to other comments on rail, I also agree that for a system to work, you gotta get as much of it moving as possible. Unfortunately, this is Florida and this is the US- outside of NYC and Chicagoland.

you can have a successful system with an initial single line, especially one that connects two major hospitals (ORHS & FH South), two popular downtowns (Orlando & Winter Park), and several outskirt commuting suburbs (Deltona, Sanford, Lake Mary, Longwood, Altamonte, Kissimmee, Hunter's Creek, Poinciana).

if you understand Orlando, you'd agree that the initial route will work. East Orlando is not on an existing rail ROW, and would cost too much $$$ to get it started. However, I'm sure OOCEA and FDOT could come up with something that rides in the median of 408 in the future. Easement is there; all that's needed, are a few stations for commuters to get to downtown.

[kevinkagy]

Miami's Tri-Rail doesn't reach everyone, but it is a success despite it only have one north-south line. Sometimes you've got to start small to grow big. Especially here in the US, where transit is barely funded, that has to be the case if you want any public transit at all.