Orlando Commuter Rail: More Than a Train

[thelakelander]

Orlando Sentinel Editorial

More than a train
Our position: Commuter rail can foster exciting development around stations.

August 3, 2007

We're as excited as anyone that local governments last month approved commuter rail. Having environmentally friendly trains carry traffic-wary passengers north and south through the Orlando metro area for as little as $2.50 a trip will be something to behold and celebrate.

But focus on the trains themselves and you'll miss the boat on how commuter rail can help transform the region. Rail can help build workforce housing; open new diners and bistros; give rise to office towers and hotels. It can cluster growth around rail stations that invigorate neighborhoods, providing an alternative to sprawl.

It can, and it will, thanks to local planners and opportunists along the commuter rail line who know a good thing when they see it.

They've seen or heard what commuter rail can do for a community, boosting its economy and quality of life, in places like Portland, Ore., Nashville, Salt Lake City and Charlotte, N.C. They're eager to see that it'll do the same for Orlando and its neighbors.

Don't doubt that it will. Look what it's generating for Florida Hospital's main campus on Orange Avenue. A 250-to-280 residential unit tower, expected to open shortly before commuter rail begins service in 2010, should provide nurses and technical staff at the hospital with affordable rents. The tower's been talked about for a couple years, but commuter rail's presence, according to Rich Morrison, the hospital's government-affairs manager, pushed the project forward.

Retail shops also are expected to appear. And so are bus lines and walkways that make it easy for people to move between the station at Florida Hospital and the entertainment and arts venues at Loch Haven Park.

The residential tower also could and indeed should prove a model for other rail stops along the line. In fact, Volusia County Chairman Frank Bruno says he'd like his council to require that a percentage of new housing that appears near Volusia's two stations include affordable units for workers.

Orlando's transportation planner, Roger Neiswender, says new workforce housing also will likely rise along with new professional office buildings near the rail station that will serve Orlando Regional Medical Center.

Watch, too, as housing, commercial or retail units get built near stations in Longwood and Maitland, and in Orlando by the Lynx and Church Street sites, among others.

Commuter rail betters regions by adding commuting options, but also to the extent government planners, landowners and other stakeholders along its route tap its potential to elevate communities.

They're off to a good start, and need to stay on track.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/opinion/orl-ed03107aug03,0,4733414.story

[thelakelander]

^Take notes JTA.  By the way, for some reason the metros mentioned above (Nashville, Portland, Salt Lake City, Orlando and Charlotte), all decided skip the idea of investing in mega dedicated busways that cost more than rail and instead invested in rail.  What secret about bus transit does JTA and it's consultants know that our peer transit authorities seem to be ignoring or not taking advantage of?

[big ben]

orlando has brt, right?  i think i read that somewhere.  it sounds like they have learned from experience that light rail is the better transportation infrastructure.

[thelakelander]

No, not the type that JTA is pushing.  Orlando does have a 3 mile free bus shuttle loop in downtown called the LYMMO.  However, its more comparable to our downtown trolley shaped buses than a large scale inner city transportation system.

[big ben]

ahh.  our "trolley"   

are the people pushing for brt thinking of the struggling skyway when they think of light rail?  anything on that short of a track probably wouldn't get much ridership, except for big events.  i know when i'm going downtown, i might as well go all the way downtown.  when i'm leaving downtown, it doesn't really go far enough.