John Mica Calls Florida's High Speed Rail Application a "Dog"

[FayeforCure]

The Orlando/Miami link would have made more sense to move forward with, since the idea is HSR or bust.  However, its significantly more expensive, which is why Tampa/Orlando segment was picked.  Unfortunately, this short segment is not the best corridor for HSR implementation.  Hopefully, they can secure funds and begin construction on the Miami segment before the Tampa/Orlando link is completed.  At least then, you won't have to worry about the system not being completed due to the failure of an isolated phase 1 link.

Lake, I think we've found common ground. I fully agree.

[JeffreyS]

I think they should conect jax to the SEHSR first ok Miami to ORL at the same time.

[thelakelander]

It looks like that connection (at least in the short term) will be the Amtrak/FEC project, which will run up to 90 mph.

[buckethead]

Is there reasonable hope of converting the Amtrack line to HSR in the relatively near future?

[thelakelander]

No.  But whether its HSR or conventional intercity rail should not really matter.  More important than the "highest speed" issue is the need to upgrade the areas of track that cause trains to move slower.  Florida has to crawl before it runs.

[CS Foltz]

lake........I agree! It is not the idea of Orlando getting a system that should be statewide but the idea that particular system is basically a stand alone system. Whether or not it is a LR or a trolley is not material but the idea of trying to incorporate a system there with supposed HSR is not cost efficient! A better choice maybe the proposed FEC/Amtrak corridor to Miami.....with a track upgrade! It is not the idea of 110 mph+ at this stage but the idea of the service being started. Properly set up it could possibly stand on its own and prove the HSR concept and show just what could be rather than an Orlando system in an island!

[Ocklawaha]

Florida High Speed Rail, circa 2021... Just kidding, it's really in Colombia, ain't it pretty!

Having experience in Mass Transit and Logistics isn't reserved for Metrojacksonville alone. There are others in this state that have studied and worked in the Mass Transit arena from a planning and user perspective as well, and the vast majority look favorable to Florida's HSR application, though most would have preferred the Orlando Miami route to start with.

How true Faye, just off the top I can name 6 of us who are in some form or another transportation planners. One international, two with local firms that farm out work, and three with JTA. Giving credit where it is due, Jacksonville, and Florida in general has a highway system that even California would dream of...certainly when it comes to our busy urban interchanges. We do flyovers where ever we can replace a deadly cloverleaf, and Los Angeles, builds a 2,000 foot merge lane with a traffic light that should read "STOMP ON IT - or - DIE TRYING." Our local firm RS&H played with the designs at JIA and burst onto the national market to show everyone how an airport should be designed, again excellence.

With rail we have been the biggest collection of dumb asses ever to approach a track. See I can be a spokesman for HSR! IDIOTS! Our track record is horrible, take a look:

Miami Tri-Rail, 5 million riders a year, one of the lowest figures in the nation, in one of the hottest markets. The reason is pretty obvious, you can't serve the West Palm - Miami, market by skirting the Everglades. That track is former Seaboard which didn't arrive in Miami until Jan. 8, 1927. By that time the roaring twenty's and the Great Florida Boom had shut them out of anything like a urban core route. Meanwhile the Florida East Coast RY had been doing business and building cities along that corridor since April 1896. So in today's urban setting, guess which route FDOT chose to build upon?

Jacksonville? Okay, the Skyway is rail, monorail, the future of transportation if you ask anyone on the street that DOESN'T know it's checkered history. So we designed a system from Shands to Riverside, from the stadium to San Marco, and even a westward link that "could" be expanded into Durkeeville. Don't finish a single branch of the system, don't get riders, Duh, and call it failed.

Yeah, I write detailed stuff Faye, because the DEVIL IS IN THE DETAILS. The current HSR plan stinks to high heavens, with you on board, Mica on board, and anyone else short of the Holy Trinity.

Orlando - Tampa: As stated over and over, it doesn't serve anybody in the metro area. It's a tourist attraction, and one more Florida, fun ride for Uncle Dave and his carload of snowbirds.

OIA, is NOT the place for a multi-modal terminal, International Drive better, Orlando Amtrak, better yet, and finally Church Street Station or the new Lynx station...PERFECT. Tie it to Amtrak, tie it to LRT to OIA, tie it to Sunrail, and make the damn thing do something.

The CSX Orlando Utilities branchline east of the Airport is not the best location for a yard and maintenance facility. Sanford still has the bones of the old ACL/CSX Diesel shops, with a complete yard, and Lake Monroe is the site of the fairly large, seldom used Rand Yard. Sanford was once a hub, and still is for Auto-Train, Oh I almost forgot, AMTRAK already has shops in SANFORD! So let's spend like fools and build a new one.

The Orlando - Miami plan isn't much better, again the Devil is in the details. IF we go south of the Orlando Airport, or Sanford-Orlando International, or Amtrak at either location, we have two choices. Build the much more direct Kissimmee Valley route (so called Turnpike Route) which takes the train away from every metro between West Palm and Orlando... Unless we can count Yeehaw Junction and Holopaw, as metro areas. So direct, but misses everybody, which makes it a great match for the screwed up Orlando - Tampa segment that also misses everybody.

The second choice is head straight to the coast, highway 50, I-4, somewhere between Daytona Beach and Melbourne and Orlando. Trouble is, if we waste the time to run 30-50 miles east, then south, a Greyhound on The Florida Turnpike could do almost as good. You would also have to factor in stops in all of those places, which will drag your 150 mph train down to a realistic 60-70 mph average speed. For all those bucks, hell knows anyone could do better on I-95.


We boast about our "First World" status, but the words taste like crap when we do this SOUTH OF THE BORDER!

But it's hard to ask the feds for an even bigger chuck of HSR money, when Florida has a history of playing politics with mass transit, in particular rail.

Perhaps this is why at least one of our "professional staff at MJ" (Trabajará para la torta de Colombiana, hee hee) will work for peso's, and take the sweet life of sucre sal.


OCKLAWAHA

Colombia Es Pasion

[Ocklawaha]

One thing in retrospect, as of 1920, we HAD rail lines that extended from:

Orlando-Winter Park-Oviedo-Lake Charm, former SAL
Sanford-Sanford NAS (airport today)-Oviedo-Truck Center, former ACL(less then a mile from the Florida East Coast)
Sanford-Benson Junction-Enterprise-Maytown-Titusville, former FEC
New Smyrna Beach-Lake Helen-Orange City, former FEC
New Smyrna Beach-Maytown-Osceola-Geneva-Chuluota-Holopaw-Yeehaw-Okeechobee-Belle Glade, and was graded to Miami but never finished due to depression, THIS IS the HSR valley line, just something else we had and abandoned. former FEC
Sanford-Cameron City (ghost town, Southeast of Sanford Airport) former Sanford and Everglades streetcar line, bought by ACL and abandoned in the 1980's.

Add to these the mainlines, FEC down the East Coast, and ACL Jax-Palatka-Deland-Sanford-Orlando-Tampa, and Seaboard Orlando-Tavares-Leesburg-Wildwood (today only the Orlando-Tavares segment is still in place).

Great work Florida! TAX EM WHILE YOU CAN BECAUSE WHEN THE CARS QUIT MOVING SO DOES THE BUCK! Relief or abandonment, we made another stupid choice.

OCKLAWAHA

PS: What did your American mind tell you when you saw the peasant on the horse in Colombia (above)? Would you have guessed that he owns about all of the land in the photo, has a huge freaking ranch house - for weekends only, (it's a Colombian thing to have your Finca). He has a Land Rover, A jeep CJ, and a fancy french sedan, Peugeot 407 that still has the new smell inside! Engineer, builds highway tunnels... pretty cool really!

[CS Foltz]

Ock...........what leaves me speechless is the notion of what we had at one time and then just wrote it all off! The ROW should still be in place, along with some stabilized bedding and seems to me that this is something that could come to life without too much effort or cost? There are several corridors that would be of benefit in either LRT mode or true HSR.....we have options to select from but the powers that be just don't seem to get the notion about rail! I am glad to see that some of the neighboring counties are trying  to plan ahead and think about the possible consequences of horizon to horizon concrete but there are still pockets of resistance to a simple concept.........put some rail in, plan around it and do it. From my view the answer is not more concrete but to make more efficient use of what we already have.......same goes for ROW and rail!

[tufsu1]

Let me help you all with this....intercity rail of any form will do just fine in Florida if we don't widen the interstates between our cities beyond six lanes!

[JaxBorn1962]

John Mica is the Real Dog

[Ocklawaha]

Let me help you all with this....intercity rail of any form will do just fine in Florida if we don't widen the interstates between our cities beyond six lanes!

I too will offer a hand of help and qualify your message with the postscript: "If it actually goes to/through the cities."

Anything less is not intercity rail.

If John Mica is the real dog, then he deserves a milk bone for attacking this theif of a HSR plan!

OCKLAWAHA

[FayeforCure]

With rail we have been the biggest collection of dumb asses ever to approach a track. See I can be a spokesman for HSR! IDIOTS! Our track record is horrible, take a look:

Miami Tri-Rail, 5 million riders a year, one of the lowest figures in the nation, in one of the hottest markets. The reason is pretty obvious, you can't serve the West Palm - Miami, market by skirting the Everglades. That track is former Seaboard which didn't arrive in Miami until Jan. 8, 1927. By that time the roaring twenty's and the Great Florida Boom had shut them out of anything like a urban core route. Meanwhile the Florida East Coast RY had been doing business and building cities along that corridor since April 1896. So in today's urban setting, guess which route FDOT chose to build upon?

I hate to bother you with figures, but at 5 million riders a year, that's almost 14,000 riders per day and is considered a huge success, look at this headline:

Posted January 5, 2009

TRI-RAIL SETS NEW RIDERSHIP RECORDS IN 2008

Ironically, you and the other MJ folks are fans of the Central Florida Commuter Rail that is projected to have minimal ridership,........... an embarrassingly low ridership of just 3,500 daily riders.

But to be totally fair we also need to compare the miles on each: 61 miles for the Central Florida Commuter Rail vs 75 miles for the Tri-Rail line, so the Tri-Rail isn't significantly longer to capture more riders that way.

Hmmmm, as Ock would say: "I smell a rat"

Being front of the line is a good thing for Florida, especially since we are in dire need of jobs, although I whole-heartedly agree with tufsu1's condensed summary:

Let me help you all with this....intercity rail of any form will do just fine in Florida if we don't widen the interstates between our cities beyond six lanes!

[buckethead]

Faye using data! I like it.

Source not cited, but I'm sure she wouldn't make the numbers up.

[JeffreyS]

If we get the FEC Amtrak west palm is looking to create hyper local service in south fla on the FEC tracks.