Brightline ready to expand rail system to Tampa

[bl8jaxnative]

Modern transportation in general is only viable with government money. The government pays for roads, and airports, and seaports. Florida built the Orlando terminal Brightline is now using, and the Meadow Woods station it will connect to, and the two toll roads they're using the ROW for, and I-4 which was widened specifically for rail. No country anywhere has a completely privatized transportation network, and there's nothing inherently wrong with that.

You're avoiding the issue.  Brightline is a private corporation.  At the start their brand was we're going to do this privately.   So they're going to connect to the intermodal station at MCO.  Not a big deal.   In a mixed economy, there will be some overlap.

Since then, they've struggled to privately raise money.  This is a the richest capital markets ever.. like by a gillion miles richer than ever.

Then out of the blue, they're working with Miami to run commuter rail?



Sooo..... let's pivot to sports teams.  One of the current means local government use to subside sports teams ( public money for private profit ) is they give them stupidly fate contracts for things liek "managing the arena" and stuff like that on top of building the stadiums and arenas.


This is where my mind goes with the Miami stuff.  Is that just a way of pushing some $$$ there way?  Maybe it's not.  Devil's in the details.  But one detail that seems missing is an open bidding process for ongoing operating contract.

The problem isn't some weird purity thing like "oh no, Greyhound uses public streets".  It's liek hey, are they going to use this to shovel an extra $5, $10, $20 million a year brightline's way.  After all, no skin off their back.  It ain't their money.  And they get the immediate boost of having something shiny to claim as their doing.

RTD used this sort of public-private partnership to get around debt restrictions.   

It raises the question of what Brightline's angle on all fo this is going be.  They can barely raise the money in an easy capital market.  The boomers are retiring.  Capital markets are going to shrink.

yadda, yadda, yadda.

I'm not saying bad things are happening.  I'm just saying it has a smell.    Brightline's got billions in debts racked up and they're not even running.  They're going to be in bad need of cash flow.  Real bad.

[Pottsburg]

If Brightline does make it, and eventually comes to Jax.  That's when the city should step in and say hey I see you're (FEC) going to double track, why don't you just go to triple track and then the burden of slowing down freight is almost gone. Definitely would need major federal money though. There's a running joke that a part cost 10x as much if it's a railroad part.

[marcuscnelson]

This is maybe not relevant, but did y'all know that LeAnna Cumber's husband, Hussein Cumber, is Chief Strategy Officer at Brightline's parent company? He even authored this report when they were still All Aboard Florida a few years ago. I had no idea.

[tufsu1]

^ indeed - the company has several Jax connections - but that hasn't made an extension up here likely anytime soon.

[thelakelander]

They've been consistent the entire time since the AAF days. Miami to Orlando first. Orlando to Tampa second. Jax and anything else after those two are complete and up and running. The best thing Jax can do to prepare is the same thing as it was back in 2014. Make it worth their while to extend. Do things locally that will stimulate and feed riders into intercity rail and plan this stuff with TOD and other revenue producing opportunities in mind.

[ProjectMaximus]

Brightline expanding service west of Miami? Yes please. This would connect to my hood

https://www.thenextmiami.com/brightline-rumored-to-be-negotiating-new-connection-to-west-miami-dade/

[thelakelander]

They are building quite the system down there. I'd be interested to see how they'd get that line east of the airport to the main FEC corridor? Would it veer north near the airport and make that connection north of Little Haiti or do they have a new corridor in mind?

[acme54321]

They are building quite the system down there. I'd be interested to see how they'd get that line east of the airport to the main FEC corridor? Would it veer north near the airport and make that connection north of Little Haiti or do they have a new corridor in mind?

I'd have a hard time thinking they would do something other than using their exisiting ROW.

[thelakelander]

Can they get to Doral on ROW that they already own? I think they'd need to work with other stakeholders.

[WAJAS]

The report attached to The Next Miami's article includes a map of rail ownership in the area on page 10. They can get some distance to their destination using their current ROW that ends just west of MIA, but they'll need to either build their own line or utilize the CSX ROW to the Turnpike.

[thelakelander]

I see it now. I was wondering if they had a plan to directly connect the gap between the airport and their station in downtown Miami, since the FEC line runs well to the north.

[acme54321]

My bad I thought that line out to the Cemex plant was FEC.

[tufsu1]

Brightline expanding service west of Miami? Yes please. This would connect to my hood

https://www.thenextmiami.com/brightline-rumored-to-be-negotiating-new-connection-to-west-miami-dade/

This would be interesting indeed

[WAJAS]

All aboard? Plans for passenger rail service between Savannah and Atlanta getting on track
https://amp.savannahnow.com/amp/7138126002

Could high-speed rail running from Atlanta to Savannah connect with Brightline in Jacksonville? If Brightline wasn't so focused on the Tampa and Orlando extensions, I'd expect them to throw their hats in the ring as operators of the Savannah to Atlanta line as an extension of their future MIA to JAX service.

[acme54321]

Savannah's station is in almost as bad a spot as ours.  Imagine if it was in one of the old stations at the foot of I-16 downtown.  I'd ride the train there for that.  Well, if our station was downtown too...