TU Editorial - Pro and Con: Florida commuter rail

[Ocklawaha]

How odd that Paula thinks we'll only get 13,700 passengers daily, on the Commuter Rail, from city center to city center, 17 years from now. All of this on a system she blasts for costing as much as $2 Billion dollars. But Paula wants high speed rail, and she is prepaired to dump the budget on this pie-in-the-sky idea, an idea she is sure will carry 1,000,000 passengers a year, or 2,739 daily at a cost of $43,000,000,000 BILLION dollars. Way to go Paula, responsibility and stewardship are traits to be admired.

Ocklawaha, can you give me the source for the cost and ridership for highspeed rail?

Sure Faye, it's at: http://www.floridahighspeedrail.org/uploaddocuments/p25/Exec%20Summary%20FINAL1.pdf
Most of it in item 8 and 9, but some scattered throughout the report.

I'm not against High Speed Rail as a concept if its restricted to a few dense corridors of 300-500 miles. (I'm not against flying elephants either, but they'll have a better chance for success in Florida then flying trains). More then this and the airplane rules, less then this and Amtrak would do better. In the case of Florida, I can't see a single thing in the FOX HSR plan that would cause me to think it might work. IT WON'T, at least not the way they have it laid out. "DUM R UUS!"

FDOT doesn't have railroaders making these plans, so we get brilliant schemes like building down the center of an interstate highway when an 80-90 MPH rail line is just 1,000 yards away. Missing Jacksonville, in fact ALL of North Florida even though they plan to send the Northeast Corridor SOUTH to Jacksonville. Guess those people will walk or go Greyhound between Jax and Orlando. Worse still they plan to build a Northern route from Orlando to LAKE CITY! Idiots! These Florida planners seem to be setting the stage for train runways, passenger cabooses, and chugging electrics. ONLY IN FLORIDA!