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5 hours ago, spenser1058 said:

One other thing I thought of was that, when I lived in Atlanta and was first pondering a regular commute via MARTA rail, I spent several weekends wandering around just to get familiar with it rather than ending up late for work because I had no idea what I was doing.

 I wonder how much of that we're losing out on with SunRail due to a lack of weekend service.

I'd agree with that. Infact, from the little bit of weekend Sunrail service we have had, it appears each train has been waaayyy busier on the weekends. I cant find avg #s but the Sentinel says Sunrail's peak day was a weekend, beating out the peak weekday in the service by a whopping 50% more people (and peak weekday service was January 2nd, the day after New Years and a Friday), and that was a paid day. And if memory serves me right, that was with less trains in the day...

I know when they did the formal Saturday trial, things got pretty messed up by Irma, and like pretty much every time we've had Saturday service, the service was only announced the day before it was actually happening, giving people little to no time to plan to use the Saturday service. It seems they really should give that trial another shot.

Also, they say Saturday service costs them $20,000/day to operate... it appears on many/most of the Saturdays they operated it, excluding the post-Irma disaster time, Sunrail actually did or would have if they charged fares covered their expenses or made a profit at the normal weekday rates, even assuming the average fare is only $2 (accounting for the 50% off reduced fare people and roundtrip discount) which it easily should be. This makes sense, as those going on the weekends are more likely to be going with their family and taking more seats/tickets, and also are more likely to wish to avoid parking fees as they aren't going to be covered by employers/expense accounts, or otherwise have spaces made available to them.

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Portland officials have selected the next route for that city's light-rail system.

See the pics.

The route is a perfectly ordinary road.  Nothing special at all.  The rail will run down the middle of the road.  It will also include a 12 mile bike route.  

Not complicated stuff.

It is amazing how other cities just find  solutions.  Orlando officials, meanwhile, ring their hands and whine.  When they do make decisions, they are unattractive half-measures.

https://www.oregonlive.com/expo/news/erry-2018/08/ec30ba366f2435/portlands-next-light-rail-will.html#incart_river_mobile_index

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Frito Lay is building a 130m plant across Poinciana Blvd from the Poinciana station.   Another PepsiCo brand, Gatorade is already located just south of the station.

Combined it’s about 400 jobs within walking distance of the station.  They currently have a plant near College Park so that also bodes well if employees that live in that area have to relocate 

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3 minutes ago, Jernigan said:

Frito Lay is building a 130m plant across Poinciana Blvd from the Poinciana station.   Another PepsiCo brand, Gatorade is already located just south of the station.

Combined it’s about 400 jobs within walking distance of the station.  They currently have a plant near College Park so that also bodes well if employees that live in that area have to relocate 

The Frito-Lay plant at JYP and Silver Star Rd. opened when I was a kid. Going past it on the school bus in the morning you could smell potatoes cooking and also what smelled like burnt oranges from the juice plant across the road. Talk about an odd aroma.

The other cool thing at Frito-Lay was a mechanical ramp on the side that could lift an 18-wheeler at an angle to dump a trailer full of potatoes into the building for processing. I'd be a bit sad if it closes.

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10 hours ago, Jernigan said:

Frito Lay is building a 130m plant across Poinciana Blvd from the Poinciana station.   Another PepsiCo brand, Gatorade is already located just south of the station.

Combined it’s about 400 jobs within walking distance of the station.  They currently have a plant near College Park so that also bodes well if employees that live in that area have to relocate 

https://m.facebook.com/PositivelyOsceola/

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58 minutes ago, HankStrong said:

The more I read about it, the more a Southern extension towards Lakeland makes all the sense in the world.

I agree. It’s not very far and people commute to Orlando from there. I don’t understand the proposal for a Daytona link though. It’s a very far distance, which would require a much larger ridership to make successful than I think it will get.  To keep the frequency, many more train sets would need to be purchased.

 

I think an eventual Brightline station at Cape Canaveral will do the trick for a beach connection.

Edited by WAJAS98
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1 hour ago, HankStrong said:

The more I read about it, the more a Southern extension towards Lakeland makes all the sense in the world.

It makes all kinds of sense, but remember that Imperial Polk County (yep, that's the legal name) is one of the most conservative places in Florida. If you thought the Treasure Coast was grumpy, just wait 'till you bump up against the Polk crowd (remember that Lakeland was one of the prime opponents to the SunRail deal.)

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8 minutes ago, codypet said:

I thought it was Paula Dockery and I thought it was related to her husband missing out on some contract with his company.

Given that right now they're fighting a battle royal in Lakeland over allowing the height restriction to be increased to 70', I'll let you come to your own conclusions.

(Can you imagine our UP 70-story Vertical Medical City fanboys going to war with that crowd? It boggles the imagination...)

Edited by spenser1058
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2 hours ago, spenser1058 said:

It makes all kinds of sense, but remember that Imperial Polk County (yep, that's the legal name) is one of the most conservative places in Florida. If you thought the Treasure Coast was grumpy, just wait 'till you bump up against the Polk crowd (remember that Lakeland was one of the prime opponents to the SunRail deal.)

http://polktpo.com/docs/librariesprovider2/tpo/sunrail-feasibility-study.pdf?sfvrsn=4

Polk County already paid for a nice study for Sunrail expansion.  The real issue over there appears to be re-routing CSX freight out of downtown, which would be expensive to take care of.

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On 8/19/2018 at 8:22 AM, I am Reality said:

Portland officials have selected the next route for that city's light-rail system.

See the pics.

The route is a perfectly ordinary road.  Nothing special at all.  The rail will run down the middle of the road.  It will also include a 12 mile bike route.  

Not complicated stuff.

It is amazing how other cities just find  solutions.  Orlando officials, meanwhile, ring their hands and whine.  When they do make decisions, they are unattractive half-measures.

https://www.oregonlive.com/expo/news/erry-2018/08/ec30ba366f2435/portlands-next-light-rail-will.html#incart_river_mobile_index

This has nothing to do with SunRail. 

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2 minutes ago, gibby said:

http://polktpo.com/docs/librariesprovider2/tpo/sunrail-feasibility-study.pdf?sfvrsn=4

Polk County already paid for a nice study for Sunrail expansion.  The real issue over there appears to be re-routing CSX freight out of downtown, which would be expensive to take care of.

The question is not about the government but the pushback from the citizenry. The politicians on the Treasure Coast weren't fighting Brightline until the neighborhoods went nuclear. I'm not convinced the same thing won't happen in Polk (and, relatively speaking, Lakeland is more progressive than most other areas of the county.)

 

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Let's also not assume Paula Dockery was operating in some self-created vacuum. Did she have an agenda on SunRail? Absolutely. Was some of it to gain an advantage in her husband's business? Almost assuredly.

The fact is, however, that she served in the Florida Legislature for 16 years and was reelected time after time by her constituents. Particularly at that level, that doesn't happen by going against the wishes of your voters continuously.

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39 minutes ago, Dale said:

Liberals opposed Dockery's rail opposition due to conflict of interests. Liberals oppose Scott's rail advocacy due to conflict of interests. It's almost like it's a conservative thing for liberals.

I guess it’s true what they say:  we all write our own history ;)

Edited by Ivanhoe
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3 hours ago, Ivanhoe said:

This has nothing to do with SunRail. 

It does.  It has to do with a proposed UCF link going down existing easement that was discussed a few weeks back.  He posted about it to illustrate how easy it can be to do this type of thing here.

1 hour ago, Ivanhoe said:

I guess it’s true what they say:  we all write our own history ;)

If there's one thing I've learned as of late, is that most all decisions made in politics are directly tied to something other than idealism.  Idealism is for the masses and the picketers.  On both sides, mind you.  Which goes back to Mica.  Knowing this, my stance was, for whatever reason he is pushing for CRT, let him push as hard as possible so we can see what we can get as a result, whether his intentions were noble or the result of getting greased, like most politicians.

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On ‎8‎/‎20‎/‎2018 at 5:11 PM, Jernigan said:

Frito Lay is building a 130m plant across Poinciana Blvd from the Poinciana station.   Another PepsiCo brand, Gatorade is already located just south of the station.

Combined it’s about 400 jobs within walking distance of the station.  They currently have a plant near College Park so that also bodes well if employees that live in that area have to relocate 

Easy Foods also just opened a manufacturing and research facility in Poinciana Industrial park, with plans to hire up to 225 people with above average salaries.

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On 8/31/2018 at 2:27 PM, spenser1058 said:

FDOT vs. SunRail: as the clock ticks toward transition from state to local control, fasten your seat belts for a bumpy ride.

SunRail future hits impasse between state, Central Florida governments
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/sunrail/os-sunrail-impasse-takeover-20180831-story.html

From the Sentinel

Performance art 

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