Wafflegate on CSX Sweetheart Deal

[thelakelander]

Hey, you know, if your position is that Florida should get Sunrail at ANY cost, as it seems to have been this past year while I've been visiting Metrojacksonville, then so be it. I'm sure that not even the most well-researched information is going to have you concede that we over-paid.

My position is I'm calling the info you're presenting to make your case a bunch of bull.  I'm asking for you (since you keep going on with this) to provide the information suggesting otherwise.  Until you make a valid point, with this particular issue, I have no reason to believe that the state overpaid in this deal.

Since Dockery has been researching this issue with her staff, something I do not have the luxury of, I am satisfied that the following is true or someone such as her opponent in her race for governor would have eagerly pointed her errors out. So here is what I know,.................if you want more information ( which I doubt ) I will need to direct you to Ms Dockery:

All along, I've maintained that Dockery's case was built on baloney and commonly accepted by novices who aren't willing to take the time on their own to look at the details themselves.  Nevertheless, I've provided info above (with linked sources) proving that the Boston deal and ours are apples and oranges.  None of the quotes you provided from various anti-Sunrail blogs have provided the info I posted above in their rants.

Hey, in Florida price gouging by a rail monopoly is ok with the MJ boys.

I think everyone is still waiting for you to prove price gouging.  Instead you keep coming back with links to blogs and articles with no substance.  The ball is in your court.

[CS Foltz]

lake.............I think I agree with both you and (Egad! gotta say it!)tufsu1, which I did not think would happen this decade! To the point, Ms Faye has not provided information to the opposite side of what has been posted regarding Sunrail and the involvement of CSX and their 61 miles of track! From what I have seen, neither has Senator Dockery! Talk is really cheap, so show me something to think about! Show me something that reputes what has taken place, signed by Charlie and is in go mode!

[Lunican]

Well, if they overpaid it's only because they failed to adequately plan for anything but roads over the past several decades. It's not going to get any cheaper either.

[CS Foltz]

Lunican..............I concur! That appears to be the biggest issue, narrow minded fixation on roads.....roads ....roads! I am not sure that the so-called "Rail Committee/Panel" or whatever is the best way to go it this. I think we just created another bureaucratic office but the cost at this point is not the issue! What is important is the ability to move forward from this and lets get it done!

[tufsu1]

CS...what would you propose?

Remember, FDOT oversees all transportation in ste state (roads, freight, seaports, rail).....so creating a dedicated rail office/enterprise in the Department seems to be te way to go.

[Dog Walker]

Darn right!  Maybe at last there will be someone in the FDOT offices that will look at and advocate for a rail solution to transportation problems.  Good move!

[CS Foltz]

tufsu1............another government entity concerns me! That's another Department fighting for funding and making sure no ones treads in their territory and like you point out FDOT already overseas everything to do with transportation! One more government entity is just more money down the tubes you and pay for and still have nothing to show for it!

[tufsu1]

its not another Department...or for that matter an increase in staff at FDOT....just a reorganization of the various rail functions within FDOT!

[stjr]

Remember, FDOT oversees all transportation in ste state (roads, freight, seaports, rail).....so creating a dedicated rail office/enterprise in the Department seems to be te way to go.

Instead of a "rail" department, it should be a "mass transit" department.  That way all the road department orphans of commuter rail, street cars, trolleys, buses, ferries/hydrofoils, and any other possible mode of mass transit would have master planning coverage.

If such a department's Jacksonville office received even half of the resources allocated for 9B, the Outer Beltway, JTB, CR210/I-95, and the countless never-ending traffic improvements such as the $161 million allocated to clear the Blanding/I-295 interchange we would truly be on the way to solving both our transit and urban sprawl issues.

[CS Foltz]

stjr.........I agree with your take on the situation! Mass Transit Department not Rail! That will be a something different and out in left field office for sure! With all of the money projected to be spent over the next 3 years just in our general area were put in a Fund to finance a rail system.......we would not need our roads upgraded, to encourage sprawl and development since a reduction in road usage would relieve congestion! I don't think the answer is to build more roads, I think the answer is to build a mass transit system that would cover Duval and the surrounding counties with transfer points to divert north,south and west! Any system could start out minimalistic but run to area's that are populated! I am sure that there plenty of studies and consulting reports  having been generated over the last 5 years that would provide information to work off of. Demographic flows would indicate area's that would be in need of service within a specific time frame and go from there!

[tufsu1]

FDOT already has a Public Transit Office!

With the new rail office, that group will focus on local transit (bus, streetcar, LRT, etc.)

As for funding, there has always been a 80% - 20% share between roads and transit...that's been Federal guidelines for quite some time.

As for people switching in droves from roads to transit, it is NOT GOING TO HAPPEN....there isn' enough road congestion and to0o much free parking in our region.....we should build a transit system here so people have  other travel options (if they still choose to drive, so be it) and to change our land use/development pattrns.

[BridgeTroll]

I think everyone is still waiting for you to prove price gouging.  Instead you keep coming back with links to blogs and articles with no substance.  The ball is in your court.

It is all a big bumper sticker with her... slogans with no substance... argument with little evidence.

[Ocklawaha]

Faye, are you sure the Boston deal is apples to apples when compared to Sunrail's?  

Hey, you know, if your position is that Florida should get Sunrail at ANY cost, as it seems to have been this past year while I've been visiting Metrojacksonville, then so be it. I'm sure that not even the most well-researched information is going to have you concede that we over-paid.

Since Dockery has been researching this issue with her staff, something I do not have the luxury of, I am satisfied that the following is true or someone such as her opponent in her race for governor would have eagerly pointed her errors out. So here is what I know,.................if you want more information ( which I doubt ) I will need to direct you to Ms Dockery:

Faye doesn't have a clue y'all, she has become the mouthpiece for Senator Dockery, who also doesn't have a clue, she gets her input for Doctor Dockery, another person without a clue. She will always accept the word of another whacked out politician over that of professional planners and transportation executives. We "don't know what we're doing," but Senator Dockery's 22 year old aides RESEARCHERS do... HUH? She is convinced that Sunrail is bad, and that it cost too much, but High Speed Rail, from no where, to no where, and costing 10X's more is good? The spin is that we at MJ are the ones who refuse to acknowledge the "truth". Lake, Lunican, Tufsu1 and I, wouldn't it be a hoot to have Faye sit us down and let Dockery enlighten us? Wow!

But I have a question for our new experts, (and it's okay to pass this to either Dockery for a reply), how do you calculate that CSX is an absolute monopoly? a rail monopoly? a Florida monopoly? Inquiring minds want to know.

OCKLAWAHA

[CS Foltz]

FDOT already has a Public Transit Office!

With the new rail office, that group will focus on local transit (bus, streetcar, LRT, etc.)

As for funding, there has always been a 80% - 20% share between roads and transit...that's been Federal guidelines for quite some time.

As for people switching in droves from roads to transit, it is NOT GOING TO HAPPEN....there isn' enough road congestion and to0o much free parking in our region.....we should build a transit system here so people have  other travel options (if they still choose to drive, so be it) and to change our land use/development patterns.

Yes I already know about the Public Transit Office! I have to deal with one of their brain farts everytime that I make a "Library" run! 5 Miles out of the way just so DR Horton people can have a straight shoot into DeerWood..............freaking idiots! But I digress.....the new rail office should be concerned only with "RAIL" in its myriad forms, they should not have a thing to do with bus's (BRT or anything resembling closely) Federal guidelines are just that............I believe they are not etched in stone and Florida should have the right to follow just what is needed rather than what is dictated! We receive so little in the way of Federal dollars from gas tax's and transportation tax's or has what been posted just smoke? Supposedly we pay much more than we receive so which is it? If we don't receive our "Fair Share" then we need to compose our own music and poop on the Feds! Maybe it is time to travel our own path?

[stjr]

As for funding, there has always been a 80% - 20% share between roads and transit...that's been Federal guidelines for quite some time.

Tufsu, that needs to change to an amortizing schedule where the 80-20 road/mass transit funding split changes over say 10 or 20 years to become 20%-80%. 

At the 80-20 split currently locked in, it just perpetuates the problem.  With the amortizing schedule I suggest, the declining road dollars would gradually allow roads to reach their current capacities which would then incrementally increase the demand for mass transit.  As this happens, we would be funding the needs of that new mass transit demand with the corresponding shift to mass transit dollars.

Simple and time to start.