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Unless the SunRail spur is also going to travel south to Lake Nona and northern Osceola County, it seems to me that they should focus their efforts on getting a lightrail connector that will stop at Sand Lake Road.  Light rail would have more frequent connections and there is no need for two systems to connect along the same path.

Edited by prahaboheme
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5 hours ago, codypet said:

Accurate.  Though there is talk of constructing lightrail from airport to I-drive and using it as the Sunrail connection for the airport.  I believe right now, they're weighing the best options between the two.

If they don't connect to the airport I don't see this system ever being self-sustaining. Getting tourists on board would be a huge boost to ridership.

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It would be great to be able to take sunrail from downtown to sand lake station and then hop on the light rail to visit i-drive.  Totally skip i-4.  It would be totally stupid if we had to go from downtown to sand lake station then get off and wait for airport sunrail then go to airport, get off, wait for light rail, then go back in the same direction to i-drive.  If they really do that im going to throw a fit.

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Brutal news for SunRail, didn't think things were that bad. It puts them in a conundrum of whether or not they should just make it free.

I would like to use SunRail more often if they had more reasonable times (during the middle of the day, specifically) and if they did a better job of aligning the SunRail schedules to that of lynx buses, maybe that might boost ridership. They could probably save some money by doing e-tickets through QR codes on people's phones. If they don't have a phone and need a physical ticket, then have the machine print out simple paper receipts as tickets. Unless things have changed, the last time I used SunRail, the machine gave out those ticket cards which I thought was a bit of a waste for a one-time use ticket.

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I would love to ride SunRail to/from work, but unfortunately it doesn't run late enough for me to be able to return home. I live within walking distance of the downtown station and I work a stone's throw away from the Longwood station; it would only be a short bike ride to work (weather permitting). I swear, I-4 puts me in a crappy mood after I've cursed out every inept driver clogging up the fast lane on my way to work. I imagine I'd arrive to work in a more zen-like state if I could avoid I-4 altogether lol.

Edited by nite owℓ
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Charging isn't only good for keeping it becoming the LYMMO on rails in terms of a mobile homeless camp, but because despite perceptions, transit isn't a giveaway or social service.  

Imagine if SunRail could recoup 40% of its costs through tickets.  The remaining percent that is subsidized wouldn't be a whole lot different than the percentage of our roads and bridges that aren't paid for by gas taxes.    

Lower than that, you can argue the merits of mass transit...and there are plenty...but I wouldn't support giving users no skin in the game.

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Agreed, it should never be free. Affordable but not free. The news is depressing but I'm not shocked.

The city of Orlando really needs an all-in approach on transit. You can't just put a commuter train on a bunch of track that runs through mostly industrial areas and expect it to just magically work. The SunRail last mile on either end is abysmal. On numerous occasions I've tried to use it and the connections to buses often take 20+ minutes of walking in the Florida heat and then waiting for anywhere from 10-30 minutes for a bus to arrive (if its on time). There are a large number of trips in this city that are fairly close to the I-4 corridor and SunRail vs a Car can easily take 400% of the duration. 

God help you if you try to go anywhere during off-peak times (i.e. most of the day). 

You could address all of the above and it still wouldn't fix it, though. You need less sprawl too. And the issue here is that Orlando has no natural boundaries (mountains, large bodies of water) to counter sprawl, which means it takes political willpower. And what are the odds that's going to happen?

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I know that the fans of transit (of which I am one) hate hearing this, but SunRail was never greenlighted at the state level because of a desire for transit. It was done as a sweetheart deal by Jeb Bush's administration for the benefit of CSX. Accordingly, regardless of what we might want locally, there's no burning desire to do what's necessary to make it work (i.e., a connection to the tourism area that is the region's primary employment cluster - that line was considered critical for the original federally-financed light rail plan torpedoed by the OC Commission).

Until the OC Commission is solidly Democratic (well on our way) and Tallahassee is reinhabited by a transit-friendly political party, do not expect things to improve much. It really does matter who our state legislators are - please consider volunteering in 2018!

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So true.  There should be more than enough room in the Sand Lake corridor to even put something like BRT in.  I work less than a mile from Sand Lake on Kirkman (Kirkman Pointe) and live at 55W.  But there's no way for me to reverse commute.  Even if it could get me within a mile of my office, I'd take the train and then a last mile approach.  But it just doesn't exist and there seems to be no urgency for it to.

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I work in Downtown Sanford, the station is one of the worst along the entire line in terms of being near anything. The station is 2 miles away from Downtown Sanford, and the Lynx bus that runs along SR 46 only comes by once an hour as far as I know. If the train misses the bus, it can be almost an hour wait for me, or walk/bike along 46 which does not have  sidewalks along many stretches, only a shoulder alongside 50mph traffic, and if it's dark, there's no street lighting here. The fun part - you have to walk/bike on the SR 46 bridge that goes over the railroad tracks, rising some 30 or 40 feet, it's quite the climb. Plus my work schedule is a bit outside of the norm, I come in and leave much later than average. I could tolerate it in the morning, but I will not walk in this area after dark, as the Lynx bus here stops running after 7pm, which is around the time I usually get off work.

I would use SunRail, but it's too much of a hassle. It's much easier to just drive on I-4 since my commute is in the opposite direction of rush hour and somewhat outside of usual rush hour times.

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4 hours ago, sunshine said:

There are no efforts for TOD development, or effort to drasticly increase the density around train station. Just waiting for PVT sector would not work.

Out of everything SunRail - I'd say TOD has been the biggest success.   I mean it's pretty insane how quickly that has come along.

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There have been a couple good projects that wouldn't have happened without SunRail. Kudos to Orlando's northern neighbors for embracing TOD. Still, there's a lot left to do around the Sanford, DeBary, Altamonte Springs, and Sand Lake Road stations.

I'm excited to see how Kissimmee will react since it's the only urban station outside Orlando and Winter Park, and they've worked pretty hard on their downtown so far.

 

Lake Mary: Station House Apartments

4_20_4_20_Epoch--Station-House-2347.jpg

 

Longwood: Weston Park Apartments

724-

 

Maitland: Maitland Station Apartments

maitland-station-rendering*750xx2500-1406-0-1.jpg

 

Health Village: New Florida Hospital Buildings

Florida-Hospital-Health-Village-2.jpg

 

Lynx Central: Crescent Central Station

CrescentCentralStation36.jpg

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5 minutes ago, alex said:

There have been a couple good projects that wouldn't have happened without SunRail. Kudos to Orlando's northern neighbors for embracing TOD. Still, there's a lot left to do around the Sanford, DeBary, Altamonte Springs, and Sand Lake Road stations.

I'm excited to see how Kissimmee will react since it's the only urban station outside Orlando and Winter Park, and they've worked pretty hard on their downtown so far.

With all of this TOD, I wonder if there were ever conversations on establishing any TIF districts along the route to capture some of the property taxes on these buildings to offset the local government's contributions to operating the system? Would it be enough to make an impact?

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At least the TOD is coming along in some areas, Lake Mary, Longwood, and Lynx Central all have major projects either completed or almost done around them.

I think the only certainty right now is that Sunrail isn't going away.  It may not be hugely successful, but it isn't failing enough for the government to pull the plug.

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They are buying time until then Osceola leg opens next year.   I dont blame them for opening the northern end before I4 construction began but now we can see that the construction isn't impacting traffic into downtown enough to cause an exodus away from cars.   

Kissimmee to Orlando, on the other hand, then your talking tolls and traffic 

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Also there's really not a good easy way to get to Kissimmee, BVL or Poinciana from downtown to vise versa.  It would be the quickest and easiest way by far.  The Turnpike, though fast has bad bottlenecks on I-4 around rush hour.   Plus there's the whole Millenia area you'd have to contend with.

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Can they not add a link from kissimee to Disney front door that will help?

All they are doing is react to the situation and not planning for it. All the land around the station should already have zoning ready and all sort of projects line up or under construction before it is even there. 300 units of apartment is not going to increase the ridership.

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A Disney connection would be great, but Disney would oppose such a thing, they don't like tourists leaving their property and going to their rivals. Disney seemed to oppose a maglev/light rail stop at their property that would have gone through the International Drive area first, for this reason. What they had seemed to want was a direct link between the airport and Disney with no stops, which their buses already do this.

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That's true.  Old High Speed Rail Disney was kicking and screaming about because it allowed people to visit their park, but it made it easy for their park goers to hit Busch Gardens or stay on the I-drive/OIA/Tampa Hotels.  Same reason Rosen threw a fit about it as well.

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