Florida High Speed Rail Option and Elimination

[Metro Jacksonville]

Florida High Speed Rail - The Conservative Way



Jacksonville stands at the door to regain its leadership position as the railroad gateway to Florida. Within the last week we have heard a new governor suggest he would never support rail, a FDOT official that thinks our train station should be at the airport, a report that the City told Amtrak the concourse at Jacksonville Terminal was "an old baggage tunnel," and that a certain white haired JTA planner has no intention of allowing selective condensing of the Jacksonville Transportation Center plan.

Full Article
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2010-nov-florida-high-speed-rail-the-conservative-way

[Garden guy]

With Florida's conservative record we can all forget about high speed around here. Heck it took us generations for this state to allow gays to adopt...trains are way too advanced for them. They'll spend millions to ban it I'll bet. Our governor is a thief and liar what. Makes anyone think he or his followers are going to support anything like hsr.

[JeffreyS]

Way to tell it like it is.

[wsansewjs]

UGH MetroJacksonville! You just brought me back bad memories. When I was working in Orange Park, I had to cross Blanding Blvd. every morning on that street in the photo after riding the WS2 on GayFuckingTA(JTA). To make matter worse, I have a limited vision.

_______________________________________________________________________

Now on to the high speed rail. I have personally seen the CALTrains which runs up and down along San Jose -> San Francisco and other cities. It is very impressive and extremely successful rail project started few decades ago. In fact, my sister used to live in an apartment that is right next to the CALTrain station. They sneak in pretty quiet throughout the nighttime, then boom as fast they can muster to their destinations.

It is REALLY nice and inspirational to have HSR here in Florida, but I can see everyone's perspective, even I am a huge supporter of HSR. Use what we have already in Florida, and build solid foundation that can be flexible for any future upgrades including extending to HSR-standard. I can go on all day about this topic.

The real key here is be realistic. If we can strike a balance between vision and reality, then we can create something beautiful.

-Josh

[jaxlore]

Great article. Many good points. Will things change anytime soon. I hope.

[Fallen Buckeye]

Wouldn't making use of what we have in place and making cost-effective improvements to infrastructure actually be a conservative approach? It's not a conservative/liberal issue to me. It's an issue of common sense.

[Jumpinjack]

Here's a new anti-train twist:

* The Wall Street Journal,  NOVEMBER 20, 2010

The Allure of Techno-Glamour
      By VIRGINIA POSTREL

When Robert J. Samuelson published a Newsweek column last month arguing that high-speed rail is "a perfect example of wasteful spending masquerading as a respectable social cause," he cited cost figures and potential ridership to demonstrate that even the rosiest scenarios wouldn't justify the investment. He made a good, rational caseâ€"only to have it completely undermined by the evocative photograph the magazine chose to accompany the article.

The picture showed a sleek train bursting through blurred lines of track and scenery, the embodiment of elegant, effortless speed. It was the kind of image that creates longing, the kind of image a bunch of numbers cannot refute. It was beautiful, manipulative and deeply glamorous.

The same is true of photos of wind turbines adorning ads for everything from Aveda's beauty products to MIT's Sloan School of Management. These graceful forms have succeeded the rocket ships and atomic symbols of the 1950s to become the new icons of the technological future. If the island of Wuhu, where games for the Wii console play out, can run on wind power, why can't the real world?

Policy wonks assume the current rage for wind farms and high-speed rail has something to do with efficiently reducing carbon emissions. So they debate load mismatches and ridership figures. These are worthy discussions and address real questions.

But they miss the emotional point.

To their most ardent advocates, and increasingly to the public at large, these technologies aren't just about generating electricity or getting from one city to another. They are symbols of an ideal world, longing disguised as problem solving. You can't counter glamour with statistics.

Glamour always contains an element of illusion. (The word originally meant a literal magic spell.) By obscuring some details and heightening others, it offers an escape from the compromises, flaws and distractions of real life. It shows no bills on the kitchen counter, no blisters under the high heels, no pimples on the movie star's face.

In those glamour shots, wind power seems clean, free and infinitely abundant. Turbines spin silently and sometimes appear barely taller than a child. The wind blows constantly and in exactly the right amountâ€"never so much that it piles up unwanted power and never so little that it requires backup supply. The sky is unfailingly photogenic, a backdrop of either puffy clouds or a brilliant sunset; the landscape is both empty and beautiful; and there are no transmission lines anywhere.

The image of a speeding train, meanwhile, invites you to imagine taking it when and where you want, with no waiting, no crowds and no expensive tickets. Like the turbines, high-speed trains exemplify autonomy and grace, sliding along effortlessly, with no visible source of fuel. To a stressed-out public, they promise an escape from traffic jamsâ€"and, at least until the first terrorism scare, from the hassles, intrusion and delays of airport security.

For all its deceptiveness and mystery, glamour reveals emotional truths. What today's green techno-glamour demonstrates, first and foremost, is that its audience has no inclination to give up the benefits of modernity and return to the pre-industrial state idealized by radical greens. Neither the Unabomber nor Henry David Thoreau would go for wind farms and high-speed rail. To the contrary, these iconic new machines cater to what Al Gore denounced in "Earth in the Balance" as "the public's desire to believe that sacrifice, struggle and a wrenching transformation of society will not be necessary." They promise that a green future will be just as pleasant as today, only cleaner and more elegant.

For at least some technophiles, in fact, the trains and windmills are goods in and of themselves, with climate change providing a reason to force the development and adoption of cool new machines that wouldn't otherwise catch on. These technologies also restore the idea of progress as big, visible engineering projectsâ€"an alternative to the decentralized, hidden ingenuity of computer code. They evoke the old World's Fair sense of hope and wonder, a feeling President Barack Obama draws on when he endorses high-speed rail subsidies as "building for the future." They are the latest incarnation of flying cars and electricity too cheap to meter.

The problems come, of course, in the things glamour omits, including all those annoyingly practical concerns the policy wonks insist on debating. Neither trains nor wind farms are as effortlessly liberating as their photos suggest. Neither really offers an escape from the world of compromises and constraints. The same is true, of course, of evening gowns, dream kitchens and tropical vacations. But at least the people who enjoy that sort of glamour pay their own way.
â€"Virginia Postrel is the author of "The Future and Its Enemies" and "The Substance of Style." She is writing a book on glamour.

[Ocklawaha]

This is what makes the news from Tampa so compelling. Tampa is home to USF and USF is home to CUTR the so-called Florida transit "think tank," that is long on highways and quite short on "think." Out of this same campus comes the NATIONAL BUS RAPID TRANSIT INSTITUTE, the clown act that has made about every anti-rail argument known to man and carried that gospel to Tallahassee to feed the minions of Tea Party and Republican slant. This is the same bunch that came up with the clever line, "BRT JUST LIKE RAIL ONLY CHEAPER..." CUTR also claimed buses had a higher capacity then rail IF they operated on 2 second headways! Man you better jump on or off pretty damn fast or your flat as a mat in Florida... and THESE are the people that have influenced our capital, our new governor and oh yes good old Steve (Skyway) Arrington, senior planner for JTA.

OCKLAWAHA

[CS Foltz]

Makes too much sense Gentlemen!  CUTR, as you say Ock, is long on highways and extremely short on think! I don't but it for one minute..............bovines! Maybe Mr Arrington should think seriously about retiring? Time for talk is past and it's past time to do something besides concreting over every inch of land within sight! People don't think about the "Maintanance" cost for our roads and everyone that goes in, at some time in the future will be needing work on it! Kings Avenue on I95 is coming up and I look forward to 4 to 5 years of traffic congestion beyond the normal bottle neck!

[peestandingup]

"While high speed rail, airplanes or new highway lanes will never solve our congestion pains, properly planned and integrated together they can provide choices that could mean you'll never have to sit in traffic again."

And this is why IMO we'll never see this in our lifetimes. I truly believe that we as a nation have gone so far with our car-centric society that it'll take many decades to turn it around, just like it took decades to originally kill the railroads back in the day. With the slow way our governments work, the special interests, lobbyists, big oil's influence & just people's mindsets in general, sadly it doesn't look good.

Seriously, sit down & really think of how many people/businesses benefit from your ass having to take your car everywhere you go & how much power they have & then you'll see the scope of this thing. They ain't about to lose that. This is why we're really starting to suck as a nation of "do nothings" & getting smoked by other nations.

I think anyone who wants this type of lifestyle & true choices in transportation are gonna have to either move to a *very* small handful of cities in the US or just move to Europe.

[Ocklawaha]

Exactly why a conventional equipped train, on current track is the correct choice for Florida as opposed to Disney's flying train in Central Florida. For Faye and others that want to argue "job creation" from High Speed Rail, consider that capacity increases, new signaling, crossing protection, and general track upgrades to increase speeds and frequencies would not only provide just as many high quality jobs as HSR but more long term or continuous employment. The concept of HrSR is simple, the end result will be HIGH SPEED RAIL with customers, more cost coverage from the farebox and routes built on demand rather then dream studies.

Quick, think of a state in the USA most known for automobiles and FREEway's...  I won't say the name but the initials are CA. Would you believe this is the same state that is leading the nation in a rapid conversion and adaptation to rail? TRUE! In fact California has become an icon for how to do it.

This can easily happen in our lifetime, in fact if the Florida East Coast trains, and the Gulf Wind (Sunset Limited) reinstatement can beat any construction on Mickey's Flying Train, common sense is more likely to prevail over the whole state. Success of 90 MPH conventional Amtrak Trains would show Tallahassee the power of sensible  usable rail. Take these Billions and spread them throughout the whole state with a statewide network.

OCKLAWAHA

[finehoe]

Any piece that starts off quoting faux-economist hack Robert J. Samuelson isn't to be taken seriously.

[tayana42]

Another excellent post from Metro Jacksonville.  The argument in favor of conventionally equipped trains operating on existing track is compelling; more so as highway traffic gets ever more congested.  And despite the negative WSJ article, there is value in rail travel in the sense that the traveler actually enjoys the experience...as opposed to highway and air travel.  I love the rail experience in europe, from the sleek and fast TGV in France, to the narrow gauge mountain railways in Switzerland.

[tufsu1]

There's good logic to be fiscally conservatove....and move forward with HSR

http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2011/01/07/a-fiscally-conservative-approach-is-the-right-one-for-florida-high-speed-rail/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thetransportpolitic+%28The+Transport+Politic%29

[Ocklawaha]

It suggests that the project will not be operationally profitable, despite the fact that nearly every high-speed rail project completed anywhere in the world has achieved as much.

Even some of our "solid sound thinkers," have taken leave of their senses because a "flying train," looks so cool we've just got to build it!  When is the last time you rode a train ANYWHERE just because it looked cool?

"There goes another one..." right off the deep end with another Florida HSR false statement...

NAME THEM.

Tokyo - Osaka
Paris - Lyon

and uh?

To pretend Amtrak makes a buck off the corridor depends on their highly skewed accounting, and that basically gives the NEC a free ride and changes the hell out of long distance, intercity rail. While the reality is the NEC is a loser too, the Long Distance isn't nearly as bad as they have postulated all these years. These Sunshine State reporters claiming how many, and how much, we're going to make off this train because Acela "makes money," are the same clowns that have told us for 35 years, "For every Amtrak ticket sold it cost you and I $30 dollars," but hey, we're going to get MICKEYS MAGIC TRAIN so suddenly it's all profit.

Florida AMTRAK ridership (for the deluded these are generally people that WILL ride trains) has just hit right under the Million passengers a year mark.  We will be lucky to see even that million on the HSR in ANY year, considering it doesn't go anywhere anybody wants to go, takes too long - longer then a car to get there, leaves from God Forsaken nowhere stations, Doesn't connect with the state rail system, costs more then the car, requires a car rental or mass transit at arrival, and tries to serve a tourist market already saturated with ALL INCLUSIVE packages...  Um, what theme park is going to be first in line to chunk their tourist packages so the people can ride this flying train?

PSST... IT AIN'T GONNA FLY WILBUR!

Damn, here I go, from Consultant to El Misericordia of Florida's railroads, in one giant leap...

I remain, at your service,

OCKLAWAHA