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Brightline Trains


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I know, that's crazy to me, Dale, as they have arguably the very best Freight Rail network in the world. I don't know how CN or CP couldn't trainslate (lol) their efficient processes and expertise to passenger rail. Seems like a HSR for Quebec/Montreal/Ottawa/Toronto/Detroit corridor would be prime for such a network and then could connect to US areas like Boston or New York. 

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21 hours ago, dcluley98 said:

Baltimore BWI station is "kinda" the first HSR/Communter Rail/Airport connection in North America. I say "Kinda" because it is on airport property but you still have to take a bus connector to get to the airport terminal. 

 

And its awful.  A friend of mine from the UK took the train to Washington Union Station after flying into BWI once and commented on how "third-world" American transit infrastructure is.  And he's right.  

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On 6/28/2018 at 9:43 PM, aent said:

I think to further clarify our opinions, I think both jrs and myself (and jrs step in if you disagree with me so I don't talk for you too much) both were disappointed when the state of Florida rejected the HSR money. We both believed there was a high risk of a cost overrun. Our opinions were changed a bit by the turn of events after it was rejected, namely Brightline and how the other system from the same program has performed since then (California).

This has a bit of an analysis on the situation from back in 2011 (pre Brightline, and at the time, California's overbudgetness was estimated to be at only $45 billion, a 111% cost overrun instead of the $100 billion they're now approaching)... here's some highlights:

"The average capital cost overrun for passenger rail projects was 45 percent and cost overruns above 40 percent in fixed prices are common, especially for rail projects and overruns above 80 percent are not uncommon.7 Moreover, they found that capital cost overruns were pervasive, occurring in 9 out of 10 projects."

"If the Tampa to Orlando high-speed rail line experiences cost escalation typical of international high-speed rail projects, it will cost between $0.54 billion and $2.7 billion more than projected. Based on averages, most likely the overrun would be about $1.2 billion, all of which would be the responsibility of Florida taxpayers."

 

https://reason.org/wp-content/uploads/files/florida_high_speed_rail_analysis.pdf

I cringe whenever I see a Wendell Cox "assessment", as he runs a right-wing think tank, and always has a strong bias against the public benefits of public transportation and urban planning.  Those are two things that are hard to quantify in spreadsheet analyses, as many of the benefits are intangible.   However, that's why we have public policy.  No one ran this kind of analysis when we invaded Iraq: there was no quantifiable financial benefit to taxpayers to spend the trillions that we did, but it was supposed to provide intangible benefits such as "national security".  Politicians should be considering these intangibles in their own analyses of the benefits for the "public good",  much like they should with sports stadiums.  One could easily argue that the public good of a $2 billion HSR train system benefits a lot more people economically than two $1 billion football stadiums, frankly.  It's funny how Florida politicians, up until the Marlins Stadium fiasco,  gave less resistance to specious arguments for sports investment than public mobility over the years.  It comes down to values, and some people have very different values than others.

Edited by jliv
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3 hours ago, jliv said:

And its awful.  A friend of mine from the UK took the train to Washington Union Station after flying into BWI once and commented on how "third-world" American transit infrastructure is.  And he's right.  

Ha Jliv.  I actually have never been there. Thanks for the anecdote. It does look awful. I find it hilarious that our first real Train/Airport system you still have to get on a bus to connect.  Our terminal at MCO will be much cooler as you can get off the plane, walk to the intermodal and hop on a train to Miami and hopefully Downtown. 

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22 minutes ago, gibby said:

MARTA goes directly into the Atlanta airport and is pretty nice.

I was wondering how we missed MARTA in this discussion.

MARTA also has cute transit cops! (oops, I suppose I wasn't supposed to say that out loud.)

Edited by spenser1058
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I didn't say MARTA because it isn't really Inter-city like the ones along the NEC Acela route. Marta is great though. I remember riding it to the Olympics back in '96. Crazy how long it's been and we are just now getting  trains in Florida. Looking this up, Newark has an Acela station connected by their monorail/people mover too. It looks pretty bad though. Newark airport is awful. Never rode the train there but that airport is hell on earth and consistently ranked as the worst airport in the U.S., whereas MCO is consistently one of the best ranked. 

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To be fair, Metrorail opened in Miami in 1984 which puts it in the same time frame as MARTA rail. Metromover wasn't too far behind (both were prominently featured in a Pepsi ad during the '80's. with a Miami Vice vibe.)

Jacksonville's people mover dates back to the early '80's, I think.

Harbour Island in Tampa had its short Connector to Fort Brooke in the mid '80's.

Obviously, not a lot, but there were efforts underway.

http://flashbackmiami.com/2015/06/24/metrorail/

From the Miami Herald

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I'll never forget the time my three-year old expressed a desire to ride a monorail. So, I took him the Harbor Island Tampa. The monorail was closed for maintenance. The little guy cried. But I took him to McDonald's and everything was okay. The End.

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8 minutes ago, IAmFloridaBorn said:

WOW Tampa had a monorail and tore it down?

It was mostly a marketing gimmick as no one knew if people would want to live downtown back in the '80's. As Dale discovered, it was down more than it was up because the developer lost interest pretty quickly (especially after the little festival marketplace dwindled) and the city had a hard time justifying spending tax money on a connection to a private development. We should probably be grateful it lasted as long as it did.

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IAmFloridaBorn. As Spencer states, it didn't really count as more than a gimmick for the mall. Basically a short spur to nowhere from downtown. It lost so much money they shut it down and demolished the track in less than 15 years.

Here's a decent link of the blast of the past from Harbor Island Mall and People Mover: 
https://www.tampapix.com/peoplemover.htm

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12 hours ago, jliv said:

I cringe whenever I see a Wendell Cox "assessment", as he runs a right-wing think tank, and always has a strong bias against the public benefits of public transportation and urban planning.  Those are two things that are hard to quantify in spreadsheet analyses, as many of the benefits are intangible.   However, that's why we have public policy.  No one ran this kind of analysis when we invaded Iraq: there was no quantifiable financial benefit to taxpayers to spend the trillions that we did, but it was supposed to provide intangible benefits such as "national security".  Politicians should be considering these intangibles in their own analyses of the benefits for the "public good",  much like they should with sports stadiums.  One could easily argue that the public good of a $2 billion HSR train system benefits a lot more people economically than two $1 billion football stadiums, frankly.  It's funny how Florida politicians, up until the Marlins Stadium fiasco,  gave less resistance to specious arguments for sports investment than public mobility over the years.  It comes down to values, and some people have very different values than others.

He's doing financial assessments here. I know they (the organization, not sure on the individual) did run this analysis on Iraq and was recommending getting out for financial reasons while Bush was still president, it was, as you said a trillion dollar plus negative. A pretty anti-ring-wing position, but they've done that numerous times, the organization is not right-wing at all. It just stands for responsible spending of tax dollars and making sure things are transparent, so we know what we're paying for, and we're not lied to about what we're paying, as it happens so often from BOTH sides.. They've done the same on most sports stadiums as well.

And if you do look at said analysis on the HSR, they do recommend a number of cost controls be put in place and not necessarily to cancel the project... to summarize said article, they proposed the project can continue with these conditions:

- Builder/Operator assumes all risk, and would not be eligible for any reimbursements from unforeseen circumstances unless the circumstance is a state required change, and that would require governor approval

- No operating subsidies or the builder loses its operating contract

- The state should not provide any guarantees of debt/revenues

- The project, for government funding to ensure no cost overruns, should be split into 2 phases, phase 1 as MCO to Disney, and phase 2 as Disney to Tampa, so we're not in too deep  and in a California situation if the costs and promises turn out to be completely false

They didn't object to the federal funds or the state providing $280 million to the rail system, they just wanted to make sure thats it, a $3 billion subsidy should be enough to a rail transit system thats supposed to be able to sustain itself according to the claims. As is, we're getting it with Brightline with almost no subsidy, better then what Reason even asked for. 

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8 hours ago, gibby said:

I disagree that "the organization is not right-wing at all".  They are funded specifically to influence public opinion against any public spending that could conceivably lead to higher taxes.

The norm of right wing is still to spend, just to spend on the military, crony capitalism/subsidies for private businesses, and other such projects. They go against crony capitalism and military spending as well, so they can't be right wing.

As I said before:

It just stands for responsible spending of tax dollars and making sure things are transparent, so we know what we're paying for, and we're not lied to about what we're paying, as it happens so often from BOTH sides.

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3 hours ago, aent said:

The norm of right wing is still to spend, just to spend on the military, crony capitalism/subsidies for private businesses, and other such projects. They go against crony capitalism and military spending as well, so they can't be right wing.

As I said before:

It just stands for responsible spending of tax dollars and making sure things are transparent, so we know what we're paying for, and we're not lied to about what we're paying, as it happens so often from BOTH sides.

I disagree strongly with all of this.  In my opinion, this is clearly a right wing organization funded by fanatical anti-tax billionaires to influence public opinion against government spending for any type of public good.

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7 hours ago, gibby said:

I disagree strongly with all of this.  In my opinion, this is clearly a right wing organization funded by fanatical anti-tax billionaires to influence public opinion against government spending for any type of public good.

Are you talking about the Kochs ? Their role in crushing Nashville transit is VASTLY exaggerated. Their contribution was $10,000 as against proponent's $2.9 million.

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