SunRail

[jrs2]

On 8/1/2019 at 12:31 PM, jliv said:

Not true.  Nowhere in the Sunrail Phase 3 study was an estimated land acquisition cost in that ballpark.  Anyhow, OUC is a public utility and would probably lease the ROW at a minimal cost.  The largest costs were related to building a bridge over Orange Ave to join up with the Meadow Woods station.

the original reported estimates were for like $100M.  then, the OBJ or Sentinel or the news reported that if FDOT was interested in that spur, it would cost over $200M.  This was as recent as last year.  Look up the old posts in the Sunrail thread.

They would build a RR bridge over Orange Ave?  Is that necessary?

[spenser1058]

Perhaps a delicious bit of irony? SunRail operations are moving to FDOT’s District 5 HQ in... DeLand!

Also, Rick Scott’s stooge who made a major botch  of the SunPass, ummmm, upgrade, is out.

https://floridapolitics.com/archives/303013-sunburn-the-morning-read-of-whats-hot-in-florida-politics-8-15-19

From Florida Politics 

 

Edited August 15, 2019 by spenser1058

[Jernigan]

7 hours ago, spenser1058 said:

Perhaps a delicious bit of irony? SunRail operations are moving to FDOT’s District 5 HQ in... DeLand!

Also, Rick Scott’s stooge who made a major botch  of the SunPass, ummmm, upgrade, is out.

https://floridapolitics.com/archives/303013-sunburn-the-morning-read-of-whats-hot-in-florida-politics-8-15-19

From Florida Politics 

 

That’s how it could easily be read but it meant that they aren’t filling the SunRail Executive Director position that Nicola held and that SunRail will be led by D5 Secretary Shannon and team.   The physical ops building in Sanford is still serving the same function.  There isn’t really much room for everyone in Deland as it is (note the closed/consolidated Semoran office).

[codypet]

This and remember Sunrail is being turned over to the municipalities in a few years anyway.

[EngineerNole]

23 hours ago, Jernigan said:

That’s how it could easily be read but it meant that they aren’t filling the SunRail Executive Director position that Nicola held and that SunRail will be led by D5 Secretary Shannon and team.   The physical ops building in Sanford is still serving the same function.  There isn’t really much room for everyone in Deland as it is (note the closed/consolidated Semoran office).

I understand that most of that Semoran office moved to another existing field office in Orlando.  The traffic people went to the new RTMC building in Sanford.

[dcluley98]

They parked a freight train downtown tonight. . . .

So yeah, that was fun trying to get home. 

WTF? 

 

[spenser1058]

35 minutes ago, dcluley98 said:

They parked a freight train downtown tonight. . . .

So yeah, that was fun trying to get home. 

WTF? 

 

Oh my that’s like the good ol’ days before they bought the tracks from CSX and you had to go to Anderson St or the East-West to go over the tracks. Such fun.

[dcluley98]

Insanity. . . 

[Urban Mail Carrier]

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/orange-county/os-ne-mayor-demings-sales-tax-rally-20190822-5rmdbkum4zerffzfva7g2oktza-story.html

hopefully this gains momentum. Mayor Demings stated  that potentially $630 Million can be obtained. Even noted that an East-west extension and other further extensions can be considered if we passed the 1¢ sales tax.

[spenser1058]

16 minutes ago, Urban Mail Carrier said:

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/orange-county/os-ne-mayor-demings-sales-tax-rally-20190822-5rmdbkum4zerffzfva7g2oktza-story.html

hopefully this gains momentum. Mayor Demings stated  that potentially $630 Million can be obtained. Even noted that an East-west extension and other further extensions can be considered if we passed the 1¢ sales tax.

The most important thing is that they wait until 11/20 for the vote. Since that’s the presidential election, that’s the way they get the most casual voters and the most Democrats (the ones most likely to support a tax on transit) to vote.

They’re also starting earlier than ever before to get folks on board with Mayor Demings unafraid to invest his political capital on it, also a huge plus.

OC voters have been  more likely to vote for these sorts of investments lately, so the trend is our friend.

Finally, Doug Guetzloe is dead. That’s rude but the man set back the region 30 years with his nonsense and chicanery.

If we all work for this, it has a good shot and it’s one of the most important issues facing us right now.

[Urban Mail Carrier]

I believe that for Mass transit to take root, Orlando and Orange County must lead the way. Volusia, Seminole and Osceola will follow at their own pace. Orlando is the regional leader, so it must start with them.

Edited August 22, 2019 by Urban Mail Carrier

[orlandouprise]

i would pay 2% more if it meant a nice mass transit system!

[popsiclebrandon]

4 hours ago, orlandouprise said:

i would pay 2% more if it meant a nice mass transit system!

Agreed. I'd love to see the sales tax hit the max and tourist hotel taxes and such also go up to fund a serious mass transit system. It would pay for itself with the tourists it would help route. I spent some time in Hamburg this year and I was never more than a 5 min walk to a train station and that would include way out in the suburbs. It was always on time, clean, safe, and filled with very unfriendly Germans.

[aent]

9 hours ago, popsiclebrandon said:

Agreed. I'd love to see the sales tax hit the max and tourist hotel taxes and such also go up to fund a serious mass transit system. It would pay for itself with the tourists it would help route. I spent some time in Hamburg this year and I was never more than a 5 min walk to a train station and that would include way out in the suburbs. It was always on time, clean, safe, and filled with very unfriendly Germans.

So if it'd pay for itself, why do we need such a regressive, large tax increase?

[Jernigan]

Rental car taxes.  

[Urban Mail Carrier]

2 hours ago, aent said:

So if it'd pay for itself, why do we need such a regressive, large tax increase?

Regressive??? According to Demings 51% of this penny sales tax increase will be paid by tourists. Thus the burden is not entirely on us the residents. Unless you’ve living in a cave I’m certain you’ve noticed all the developments around the train stations. These new developments produce more revenue to the cities. These new revenues aren’t chump change either. But for this to continue happening, as in any new project or expansion  there must be an initial investment. I’ll dumb it down  Like a hot dog stand if u want to make money off of it u must first buy the equipment and the stand itself. If u want to continue making money off of it u must maintain it.

[AndyPok1]

I'm assuming he's making the point that Sales Taxes are, in general, one of the most regressive forms of taxation there is.  With that said, if its for mass transit, I'm all for it.

[popsiclebrandon]

8 hours ago, aent said:

So if it'd pay for itself, why do we need such a regressive, large tax increase?

Start up costs I'm sure would be in the 100s of millions to billions depending on how big of a system would be put in. 

We're going to have to start figuring out how to pay for roads and such when more cars go to electric and we can't collect gas taxes. Moving to a forward thinking transit system would alleviate some of that as well.

[spenser1058]

29 minutes ago, popsiclebrandon said:

Start up costs I'm sure would be in the 100s of millions to billions depending on how big of a system would be put in. 

We're going to have to start figuring out how to pay for roads and such when more cars go to electric and we can't collect gas taxes. Moving to a forward thinking transit system would alleviate some of that as well.

Most light rail and all heavy rail systems (in the modern era)require infusions from the Feds. Of course, the Clinton administration offered us $600 mil to build light rail and that party Hank won’t let us mention turned it down.

Not to worry. Charlotte has made good use of the money with their Lynx system.

Edited August 23, 2019 by spenser1058

[aent]

1 hour ago, AndyPok1 said:

I'm assuming he's making the point that Sales Taxes are, in general, one of the most regressive forms of taxation there is. 

Yup, and its often one that is very unfairly collected to produce very skewed statistics: many cash heavy businesses and their employees are well known to heavily under-report their sales and thus pay way too little in the tax, while businesses like mine pay every single cent of it, giving a very, very unfair advantage and hurting the poor and small business owners the most, by far. A 1% hit on my income will hurt me. It will hurt people poorer then me even more then me.

 

6 hours ago, Urban Mail Carrier said:

According to Demings 51% of this penny sales tax increase will be paid by tourists.

Yeah, thats total BS. I've seen how they come up with those numbers before, and they often use all spending in the tourist district as tourist spending. If thats pointed out, me travelling locally to the tourist area is me taking a staycation, so that me as a tourist. When I go eat on I-Drive, they're calling me a tourist. And when I go to the theme parks, I'm surely a tourist, travelling from Orlando. Even on the rental cars, those heavy rental car taxes affect us as well... when my roommates car got stolen, he had to rent vehicles multiple times, and pay a ton in that tax revenue. When I was at UCF and my friends and family came to visit me, they stayed in the hotels and had to pay the tourist tax. Us locals pay the tourist taxes ALL THE TIME. Yeah, the others pay them too, but just because they claim 51% of the taxes are from tourists, that doesn't mean its not from us, and our family and friends who are simply tourists to visit us.

6 hours ago, Urban Mail Carrier said:

Unless you’ve living in a cave I’m certain you’ve noticed all the developments around the train stations. These new developments produce more revenue to the cities. These new revenues aren’t chump change either. But for this to continue happening, as in any new project or expansion  there must be an initial investment. I’ll dumb it down  Like a hot dog stand if u want to make money off of it u must first buy the equipment and the stand itself. If u want to continue making money off of it u must maintain it.

Yup, I'm totally with you there. In the Brightline thread, I have been among the biggest supporters of that project, and making sure the government does whats needed to make that happen. I was among the only ones on this forum complaining loudly that the government was actively fighting against AMT and then against Globalvia on a light rail system from the airport to the I-Drive corridor, and eventually to Lake Nona and beyond. Those who wanted it to be paid for by a tax increase fought it really, really hard, because a train system without a tax increase might reduce tax revenue overall (by losing rental car taxes and airport fees). It was argued that the revenue lost would be more then made up by the exact things you're saying: new developments and increased business creating lots of new revenues, but they said we can't risk losing our current revenues for potentially much bigger new revenues, and a train system.

Then they used the excuse that the technology was unproven, and the companies offered to post a bond before construction to cover the cost of removal if the system wasn't operational within a certain time frame of its estimated completion date. The airport said no, and then said let us prove it by making it work with every stop but the airport one, and make the airport phase 2, and then the city said nope.

But many of the same pro-tax increase people here were anti-transit that go around.

1 hour ago, popsiclebrandon said:

Start up costs I'm sure would be in the 100s of millions to billions depending on how big of a system would be put in. 

We're going to have to start figuring out how to pay for roads and such when more cars go to electric and we can't collect gas taxes.

Yup, and if it'd pay for itself, we could get bonds and get investors to pay for it for the returns on the investment.

And we seem to be a long ways off to having a significant number of electric cars on the road and replacing our fleet. I'm in the market for another PHEV/EV vehicle and there just isn't much choice out there for everyday drivers for most people. I'm not interested in a compact car like the Bolt or Prius, but don't want to price tag of a Tesla, and its just not out there. There's a few vehicles that would fit the bill, but they're even in stock in any dealers. Even once it does become available, with the average age of our vehicles being 11 years, and us being so many years off from even having a significant portion of sales being alternatively fueled, its just a problem we don't need to start figuring out yet.

Infact, Orlando does have low gas taxes for the state of Florida, and we're allowed to have a 6 cent increase if we want... which would bring in revenue for roads/transit, funded by users of the road roughly by how much damage they do to the roads and the environment (how much gas they can assume)... I'd personally be more inclined to vote for a gas tax increase then a sales tax increase, since at least its a tax discouraging negative behavior, instead of the regressive tax the sales tax is.

1 hour ago, spenser1058 said:

Most light rail and all heavy rail systems (in the modern era)require infusions from the Feds. Of course, the Clinton administration offered us $600 mil to build light rail and that party Hank won’t let us mention turned it down.

 

Why do you keep mentioning this when, as I've replied to you saying this previously, the democrats literally sent away $400 million of non-tax dollars much more recently then the 20+ years ago that the Republicans sent away tax dollars?

[Urban Mail Carrier]

54 minutes ago, aent said:

Yeah, thats total BS. I've seen how they come up with those numbers before, and they often use all spending in the tourist district as tourist spending. If thats pointed out, me travelling locally to the tourist area is me taking a staycation, so that me as a tourist. When I go eat on I-Drive, they're calling me a tourist. And when I go to the theme parks, I'm surely a tourist, travelling from Orlando. Even on the rental cars, those heavy rental car taxes affect us as well... when my roommates car got stolen, he had to rent vehicles multiple times, and pay a ton in that tax revenue. When I was at UCF and my friends and family came to visit me, they stayed in the hotels and had to pay the tourist tax. Us locals pay the tourist taxes ALL THE TIME. Yeah, the others pay them too, but just because they claim 51% of the taxes are from tourists, that doesn't mean its not from us, and our family and friends who are simply tourists to visit us.

What your describing here is the 49% of the tax revenue that Central Florida residents will have to pay. Regardless of whether we were taxed when we purchased an item around the ECON trail or down on international drive. 51% of this same tax  ,statistically speaking, is paid from tourists. 

[HankStrong]

On ‎8‎/‎23‎/‎2019 at 4:24 PM, spenser1058 said:

that party Hank won’t let us mention turned it down.

That would actually be all of the parties.

[AmIReal]

There MAY be an update on the Deland segment in the next week or two. Deland officials want the extension and Volusia officials don't. FDOT had identified possible funds and will meet with two Volusia officials this week (both are opposed). One of them, Deb Denys said, “I think it will position Volusia well, as well as the rest of our funding partners,” she said. “I think there’s an agreement to be had, and the SunRail commission can move forward without Volusia’s veto power.”

Interestingly, the Deland mayor Apgar says there does not be a mobilized local group pushing to get it done. 

I liked this quote from DBNJ "While Volusia’s level of participation in Central Florida’s commuter rail system is yet to be determined, all transit systems operate at a deficit — with revenue such as fares and track fees falling short of the cost of running trains. That’s no different than the cost to taxpayers of building and maintaining roads."

And I was very surprised by this quote from Apgar, "These numbers are about four years old now, but on a daily basis 7,000 or so people leave DeLand to work someplace else, but at the same time, 21,000 people come from elsewhere to work in DeLand,”.

https://www.news-journalonline.com/news/20190826/will-deland-sunrail-be-derailed---by-volusia

 

[AmIReal]

Volusia taps out...

https://www.news-journalonline.com/news/20190829/volusia-asks-out-of-sunrail-to-deland-deal

The Feds made money available for the Deland extension ($34 million), but Volusia says no. They want to keep Debary and pay for that maintenance, but have requested to be removed from the binding multi-county agreement and relinquish the seat on the board.

From the article...

"Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer attempted to understand Kelley’s proposition.

“You will continue to pay for the maintenance on the DeBary station and you will no longer have a seat on this board?” Dyer asked.

“That would be great. Can we do that right now?” Kelley said."

[orlandoguy]

That’s a quote for the ages.