High-Speed Rail is the Tim Tebow of Florida Transportation

[Ocklawaha]

The Disney problem is bigger then that. The great and powerful State of Florida allowed them to incorporate as a CITY, back when they first got building. So in effect, Mickey's kingdom is like the landing, City of Disney, with an over stuffed "Town Center" sitting on top.


OCKLAWAHA

[lindab]

So many of you have commented on the coordinated planning done by FDOT on other threads. High speed rail planning, funding exists separately from commuter rail. Surprised?

[Ocklawaha]

So many of you have commented on the coordinated planning done by FDOT on other threads. High speed rail planning, funding exists separately from commuter rail. Surprised?

I believe all of us are well aware of that fact lindab (maybe with the exception of Faye, but she's moving up in class pretty fast).

I believe the real rub comes in when you calculate the length of the "corridor" and compaire it with other cities and states. What we are calling HSR, blows right through the second richest commuter corridor in the state. This is like building High Speed Rail between San Bernandino, and Long Beach, California. (This route via freeway 91 - The Jack Rabbit Trail and the Long Beach Freeway - is 72 miles long). It just doesn't fit and it's in the wrong spot to help the blooming cities urbanize rather then sprawl.

OCKLAWAHA

[thelakelander]

Ock, I don't think this system will cause any city to sprawl.  I say this because it ignores most of the cities along the corridor.  Hopefully, they'll tint the windows because it may be a lonely ride between Tampa and Disney.

[Ocklawaha]

Ock, I don't think this system will cause any city to sprawl.  I say this because it ignores most of the cities along the corridor.  Hopefully, they'll tint the windows because it may be a lonely ride between Tampa and Disney.

I figure if the stupid thing is ever built, it will miss those cities from Kissimmee all the way to Valrico. They won't build stations at anything but Disney and North of Lakeland, at first, but with demand for local traffic building, everyone will want in on the act. Developers will see to it that the communities well South of I-4 surge North to take in the interstate and their own unique station. Hell the developers will probably build the stations too. Once we fill in every inch of land between US 92 and I-4, then we'll probably decide on Commuter Rail!

In the meantime, dark tinted windows might be a good idea. I wonder if a cammo paint job would keep the trains from scaring the wildlife?

OCKLAWAHA

[ProjectMaximus]

Disney train!!!

http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/local/news-article.aspx?storyid=144745&provider=rss

Oh, sorry, is that not what we're talking about?

[FayeforCure]

Today the Governor and Cabinet of the State of Florida signed a historic resolution proclaiming their support of Florida’s application for federal funding to begin building a super-regional corridor that will connect Tampa-Orlando-Miami by high-speed rail, as well as traditional inter-city rail.

You can support this resolution by clicking here and sending an email message (suggested text provided) to your elected officials asking them to back Florida’s high-speed rail funding and development.

More Facts:
The Florida application for funding meets the goals of President Obama and the U.S. Congress. This game-changing development for the citizens of Florida would create tens of thousands of construction jobs, 25,000 new permanent jobs and reduce road congestion and air pollution.

The Governor and Cabinet request the support of President Obama, U.S. Transportation Secretary, Federal Railroad Administration, Florida’s Congressional delegation, legislature and its citizens to support Florida’s application for $2.6 billion in federal stimulus funds to connect more than 76% of Florida’s residents.

The Tampa-Orlando high-speed train will connect two international airports that annually attract more than 50 million visitors â€" now principally connected by a single six-lane highway. This highway was built with a median ready to accommodate high-speed rail. It’s shovel-ready so that construction can begin quickly.

Eventually the Orlando-Miami segment would add another international airport servicing 55 million passengers.

http://www.fastrailconnectus.com/journal_action_center.php?action=view_comments&journal_id=154&type=#

[CS Foltz]

Oh Goody.......Tampa/Orlando and Miami get HSR.............well kiss my grits! Nice to know that my tax dollars are hard at work in other parts of Florida! Makes me wonder if it will be about 2099 before we get the chance to participate?

[buckethead]

You can drive down there and use it any time you want!

[tufsu1]

Oh Goody.......Tampa/Orlando and Miami get HSR.............well kiss my grits! Nice to know that my tax dollars are hard at work in other parts of Florida! Makes me wonder if it will be about 2099 before we get the chance to participate?

dude....Jit will be much harder for Jax to have high speed rail if we don't support that infrastructure in Florida's bigges cities too.

[Ocklawaha]

Oh Goody.......Tampa/Orlando and Miami get HSR.............well kiss my grits! Nice to know that my tax dollars are hard at work in other parts of Florida! Makes me wonder if it will be about 2099 before we get the chance to participate?

dude....Jit will be much harder for Jax to have high speed rail if we don't support that infrastructure in Florida's bigges cities too.

Yep, I agree TUFSU1. As soon as Florida has a plan to build that "infrastructure IN Florida's biggest cities," for Florida Citizens, reaching out where they work, live and play, THEN I too will support it. As long as the concept is to connect airports to tourist attractions, I will protest louder with every wasted spade of dirt. Certainly call or write your representative, and tell them until they plan to use this train to connect Floridians to our homes, work and play, you will NOT support this train, or them as your representative if they support it.

My crystal goes dark as soon as I inquire about Mr. Mickeys Magic Train. The plan is bad, the location is horrible, and the politics (of Disney) inexcusable. It was one thing to sell out every bit of beauty, as well as our soul, (much of it in private parks) to Walt Disney. From Master Piece Gardens, to Cypress Gardens, Six Gun Territory, Ocala Caverns, Marineland, to Dixieland, Weeki Wachee, Sunken Gardens, Trains of Yesterday and Storybook Land, Dizzyland and the Jacksonville Beach Midway... GONE. Now the completely well intentioned, High Speed FOX system, reeks of political favors and self sacrifice on the alters of the commercial airline industry.

The current High Speed Rail plan should be REJECTED by every THINKING FLORIDIAN. Cut to the bone, it's a bad, bad, plan. We are sewing the wind, and we'll reap the whirlwind. This FOX train does not have a single redeeming value to the citizens of our great state. Jacksonville? Forget it coach, Miami, West Palm, Ft. Lauderdale, Orlando, Tampa and St. Petersburg, don't even know where Jacksonville is. Washington, D.C. and Tallahassee, have been afflicted by the same rejection ignorance they have heaped on us.

While Florida may indeed get a few dollars of the overall package, it isn't even going to be enough to pay for the paper the reports are written on. If we get any REAL railroad money, it's more likely going to be spent where it can effect Amtrak, present and future. Adding a second and third train to New York, another couple of trains to Atlanta-Nashville-Louisville-Cincinnati-Chicago-Cleveland-Detroit as well as Birmingham-Memphis-Kansas City-St. Louis-Little Rock-Tulsa, will warm up the hearts of more American voters then will any version of the mouse train. The same can be said for the New Orleans Route, starting with the BIG EASY, and rolling on to Houston-San Antonio-El Paso-Phoenix-Los Angeles as well as New Orleans-Shreveport-Dallas-Ft. Worth-Oklahoma City-El Paso and even Denver within sight.

This whole Mickey Mouse affair reminds me of a story from the War of Yankee Aggression. Major General John Sedgwick, United States Army, at Spotsylvania, May 1864, "What! What! Men dodging this way from a single bullet! I am ashamed of you. They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist..." He was shot in the head and killed as he was speaking. I am certain that those who know railroads and Florida history will conclude that the Fox (FOX = Florida Overland Express) will have an ending every bit as dramatic as the late General Sedgwick.

OCKLAWAHA

[CS Foltz]

Ock I am afraid that I have to agree! I have said that if "Mouseville wants a railroad then let them build it"! but that has nothing to do with the rest of the State! If just available numbers were the ruling criteria then Miami should be considered since its much larger than Orlando...........adding St Pete does not change much. This whole idea of that part of the world should lead the rest of us down the crimson path of transportation is somewhat misleading. Yes we need a mass transport system that is efficient, state of the art and cost effective but not starting there! I don't wish to drive for 3 hours plus to ride on the train for 2 hours and go no where and have no possibility to go elsewhere unless I wish to fly. If I want to fly then I would leave from Jacksonville and go from there!

[thelakelander]

The debate is on in Polk County.  I find it interesting that several Polk County groups want the one station in their immediate area, while Jacksonville's leaders won't come out and back any type of rail plan publicly.  A decade ago, who would have ever thought Lakeland would be more progressive on this issue than Jacksonville?

Groups Argue for Location of Rail Stop in Polk



By Bill Rufty
The Ledger

Published: Wednesday, September 16, 2009 at 9:48 p.m.
Last Modified: Wednesday, September 16, 2009 at 11:51 p.m.

LAKELAND | As Florida competes for a slice of $8 billion from the federal government for high-speed rail, groups in Polk County are lining up for a shot at getting the one station that would be built here.

More than 200 people filed into the Sikes Conference Center in The Lakeland Center on Wednesday during the first hour of a three-hour informational session on the Tampa-to-Orlando phase of the high-speed rail.

That section of the "bullet train" will run from the Orlando International Airport to downtown Tampa with a stop in Polk County.

The Florida Department of Transportation sponsored the event, as it will similar events in Orlando and Tampa, to explain the plan to the public and to get residents' reactions.

Three of the proposed sites are in the Lakeland area, while one is north of Auburndale.

Polk County will definitely have a stop, but it is just not certain where, said Nazih Haddad, the Department of Transportation project manager.

Previously, the department was planning to choose between a stop at Kathleen Road north of Lakeland or at the western end of the Polk Parkway where it joins Interstate 4, about 1 mile east of Hillsborough County. Both have already passed environmental review.

But now, the city of Lakeland has requested that a stop be considered at Carpenters Way near the Wedgewood Golf and Country Club, and the University of South Florida Polytechnic wants the station to be at its campus in the northwest corner of the eastern end of the Polk Parkway.

The county can only have one stop. And that decision probably will be made by the Transportation Department, instead of a vote by the nine-member Florida High Speed Rail Authority. The authority apparently has been left to die by Gov. Charlie Crist, who after more than 2 1/2 years in office has made no reappointments to it nor replaced two members who have resigned.

"The department has taken the lead on the projects now and is not going to the authority to get approval," said Haddad, who served as the executive director of the authority when it was fully constituted and active in the decision making.

But the department is using the same consultants selected by the authority a number of years ago: HNTB as the general consultant and Parsons Transportation.

Part of the reason for the department's taking on the lead from the authority, whose future is questionable, is that time is short to move on obtaining $2.4 billion of the $8 billion in federal high-speed rail stimulus money being offered to states to get bullet trains up and running.

For almost 30 years, Florida officials have discussed creating a high-speed rail system across the state.

There have been at least two commissions created.

The movement stalled under Gov. Jeb Bush, who opposed efforts to create a bullet train and instead supported behind-the-scene talks for an Orlando commuter-rail system.

While the two are vastly different, they are not incompatible.

The High Speed Rail Authority gained new life with the federal government's making $8 billion available for bullet train projects across the nation and pushed Crist and the department earlier this year to get going on the grant applications.

The authority now appears to have been left at the station standing by an empty baggage cart.

The money will go to states that are furthest along in their projects.

With routes and engineering plans ready for the first phase, Florida is closest to being ready to begin construction, supporters have said.

Supporters such as a group formed by Ed Turancik of Tampa say the project can be under construction by 2011. Construction can actually begin before a Polk County site is chosen.

Two stations are certain: Orlando International Airport, which likely will use the old terminal as the intermodal station, and downtown Tampa, where an intermodal site has already been selected.

Likely to become sites as well are the Orange County Convention Center off of the Beach Line Expressway and a site on the Walt Disney Company property east of the U.S. 192 interchange with I-4.

The bullet train will mostly run in the median of I-4 to Tampa.

The only other stop will be somewhere in Polk County.

The addition of two more sites in the consideration for the county's single station surprised some.

But David Steele, director of marketing for USF Polytechnic, said putting the site at the university's new campus is the most equitable for everyone in the county.

"It is far and away the most accessible for those who live in East Polk," he said. "It is important to understand that this bullet train will run both ways, not just take people out of the county. People will want to come in to USF Poly and the high-tech companies that will locate around it."

Reaction was enthusiastic among the residents attending the session, many of whom live near the Interstate or have to use it daily.

Quentin and Martha Hamilton filled out comments for the department, which they said would be favorable.

"If they don't do something like this and soon, I-4 will collapse under it on traffic," Quentin Hamilton said.

Maurice Dionne said the high-speed rail is important for the future movement of traffic in the area.

"I live about a quarter of a mile from the interstate and I am a little interested in what the noise is going to be like, but I still support this. We have to have it," he said.

The Transportation Department has already filed two applications for high-speed rail stimulus money, one of which also includes a request for money to buy track from CSX Transportation to resurrect the defeated SunRail tracks with the argument that it will carry people into Orlando from the airport.

Another application, this time for the construction money to begin actual moving of earth and the laying of rails, will be filed before the end of the year.

http://www.theledger.com/article/20090916/NEWS/909165079/1338/NEWS00?Title=Groups-Argue-for-Location-of-Stop-in-Polk

[thelakelander]

If we were smart about this, all of these places deserve a stop along a network that connects regional destinations being bypassed by the current plan.  If they really want to make this a viable alternative to driving on I-4, it has to serve a larger segment of those using I-4. 

By the way, here is the proposed USF Poly's campus along I-4 (courtesty of Heart of Florida at SSP).  It is supposed to be a New Urbanist community.

[CS Foltz]

Nice to know that this system will start and stop at Airports at both ends! If you have not been to Orlando of late...........I have to ask - How do you go down I4 to get to the airport? My point is that if I4 is such a bear to travel during rush hour how do you get to the southeast side of Orlando to make it to the train? Does this mean that more Airport access roads will have to be built.....not to mention parking both long and short term? This setup will complicate things unless your flying in and then you need to be going to either end by getting on at either end.............this makes sense?