SunRail

[spenser1058]

Merchants and others are making use of SunRail - this can only be good news!

 

"All aboard! Catch SunRail to Winter Park for a summer outing and enjoy free admission to the Morse through Sept. 30! You can find maps, train schedule, and more at http://goo.gl/aVWClq. "

 

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/sunrail/os-winter-park-sunrail-business-bounce-20140704,0,4940351.story

[codypet]

So a friend of mine walk along Amelia to get to the Sunrail station and we both think that Orlando could do well with having something like a bagel and newspaper stand between the courthouse and the Sunrail station for breakfast.  Any chance of that happening?

[jgardnerucf]

Champp's inside Lynx for a bagel. Newspaper is on your phone.

[HankStrong]

Fire up the telecopier!  I need to send out a facsimile ASAP!  Grab me my newspaper!

[Jernigan]

I don't see why those types of places wouldn't open up in the new pedestrian plaza that will go in the middle of RIDA. That said, good luck with the newspaper lol

[sunshine]

U are asking for another 7-11...

[truebluecfl]

There's a petition out to extend Sunrail service at night and on weekends.

 

http://www.change.org/petitions/ananth-persad-florida-secretary-of-transportation-run-sunrail-on-the-weekends-and-later-at-night

[jesse2occc]

Is it easy to get from the Sandlake sunrail stop to the Orlando convention center by lynx bus? I don't know much about public transportation but I live in Sanford and I work at OCCC and am looking into using the public transportation resources. If anyone is knowledgeable about the lynx bus system your help will be much appreciated.

Edited July 16, 2014 by jesse2occc

[alex]

Is it easy to get from the Sandlake sunrail stop to the Orlando convention center by lynx bus? I don't know much about public transportation but I live in Sanford and I work at OCCC and am looking into using the public transportation resources. If anyone is knowledgeable about the lynx bus system your help will be much appreciated.

I always use Google Maps to get the Lynx schedule. If you search for directions from "Sand Lake SunRail" to "Orange County Convention Center" and hit the bus icon, you'll see that the Link 111 takes 29 minutes (plus walking).

[jgardnerucf]

I always use Google Maps to get the Lynx schedule. If you search for directions from "Sand Lake SunRail" to "Orange County Convention Center" and hit the bus icon, you'll see that the Link 111 takes 29 minutes (plus walking).

 

Do Sunrail to Lynx Central, take the 8 straight to OCC.

Edited July 16, 2014 by jgardnerucf

[Jernigan]

I agree about getting off at LCS, but take Link 38! It takes I4 and makes the trip in just over 20 minutes. It runs very frequently on a loop making it essentially a SunRail shuttle for the OCCC, Wyndham building, Doubletree at Sea World and Sea World itself.

[jrs2]

Suntrust Phase III to OIA progress:

 

http://www.bizjournals.com/orlando/blog/2014/07/sunrail-moving-forward-with-phase-connecting-to.html

[John Hargrove]

Suntrust.

[John Hargrove]

Is this news we didn't expect to have yet? I honestly didn't expect to hear anything about SunRail -> MCO for months/years to come.

 

Add this connection + extend the hours of operation and SunRail becomes a viable option for my air travel. 

[Jernigan]

Considering a Phase 3 is probably at least 3 years away, the "biz journal" left out a big item happening in August. They will be moving the 7:15 train to 7:30. This is big because both Orlando Health and Florida Hospitals 7-7 shifts were not being served by the current schedule. Not enough time to wrap up shift and get out to platform. Both hospital stations had pretty dismal numbers considering the potential so hopefully this adds some ridership. The 6-2:30 schedule is still not served as folks won't wait until the first evening train to go home when they really don't fight traffic now.

[jrs2]

^^

LOL.  I guess I had Suntrust on the ole' noggen.

 

^^

Interesting about the hospital end shifts and the moving of the 7:15 train. I like that.  That's progress based on a track record and tweaking the system to integrate it better.

On that note, I think they should do that during lunch and move the return train (to downtown) another 15 minutes later so people can take the 11:25pm NB train, get to WP by 11:45 or so, and not have to feel so rushed to be able to make the 1:10pm SB train (I think those are the times).

[tennis32801]

Why wait for Sunrail? You can currently take the Lymmo from downtown to the airport for cheaper.

[Jernigan]

I wish LYMMO went to the airport

LYNX (which I'm sure is what you meant) and SunRail are the same price. I'd go with LYNX because it avoids the need to transfer.

[tennis32801]

Sorry, I meant Lynx. And if you can take the lymmo to the Lynx central station.

[Jernigan]

So regarding the OIA connector - not sure how that will work. Wouldn't want to be delay my trip to work...on commuter rail...for someone who is riding just to save some money on airport parking and who likely wouldn't be clogging up the roads that SunRail was built to provide an alternative to...

[neoanderz]

 

So regarding the OIA connector - not sure how that will work. Wouldn't want to be delay my trip to work...on commuter rail...for someone who is riding just to save some money on airport parking and who likely wouldn't be clogging up the roads that SunRail was built to provide an alternative to...

 

 

The article says phase 3 will be just north of the Meadow Woods station so I don't think it could affect you unless you will be using a phase 2 station.  Even then it isn't clear if this is considered a separate line or if sunrail will remain one single long line.  I am guessing the latter though based on the wording. 

Edited July 22, 2014 by neoanderz

[neoanderz]

Considering a Phase 3 is probably at least 3 years away, the "biz journal" left out a big item happening in August. They will be moving the 7:15 train to 7:30. This is big because both Orlando Health and Florida Hospitals 7-7 shifts were not being served by the current schedule. Not enough time to wrap up shift and get out to platform. Both hospital stations had pretty dismal numbers considering the potential so hopefully this adds some ridership. The 6-2:30 schedule is still not served as folks won't wait until the first evening train to go home when they really don't fight traffic now.

 

Shift work at the hospitals is a tricky commute to accommodate and so far sunrail hasn't really optimized itself well for it.  Since I am currently a shift worker at one of these hospitals I can explain some.

 

1) First, all standard units require nurses (who constitute most of the shift workers) to work multiple weekends each month.  This means it is impossible for most nurses to exclusively ride sunrail since they will have to drive the car to work for those weekend shifts.  Thus, they are not able to get completely into the habit of taking the train and might just forgo the train altogether out of habit of driving the car anyway.

 

2) 7-7 does not actually mean 7-7.  This is more of a problem when going home.  In the perfect world, a nurse leaves at 7 on the dot although in reality this almost never happens.  I have left anytime ranging from about 6:50 (extremely rare) to about 10 o clock.  On average probably sometime around 7:30 to 7:45.  If you work day shift then this is a huge problem because for example the southbound train from FL hospital in the evening leaves at 6:43pm and next one is 8:43pm.  It means the 6:43pm would be impossible to ever catch and you would always have to wait until 8:43pm no matter how early you get out.  It means on a NORMAL day you would have to wait more than 1 hour at the train platform (possibly nearly 2 hours), at night, after working a 12 (really 13) hour shift.  This is not an exception.  This is EVERY time.  Heaven forbid you are stuck at work late enough to miss the 8:43pm train.  This is not necessarily an uncommon thing either.  I had a few weeks recently where every day I was stuck until after 8:45.  I would have had to take 6 taxis home or used the Hertz rental 6 times.  In short, if you are working dayshift it is very risky at best to even attempt taking the train.

 

3) If you work night shift, it turns out it is actually much better for taking the train contrary to what most people would think.  You would be coming into work around 6:30pm and leaving work around 7-8 am.  All of this is during the 30 min train schedules.  There is still a chance you could leave work late (after 8:43 am) but at least you could eventually catch a train 2 hours later instead of being completely stuck.  Still this is hardly a consolation especially if you have to be back at work that night.  It means you probably wouldn't get home until after 11 am and would need to leave the house again by 6 pm to catch the evening train.  Even if you don't need to eat, shower, or do anything else you will be looking at best 7 hours of sleep (probably much less) and this is after working 15 hours or so.

 

4) Night shifters however get one less day of train usage since they can't take the train on Fridays (no ride home Saturday morning).  So that's only 4 out of 7 days of train usage or roughly 50% of the time they could even use it.

 

It is ironic that most employees at the 2 big "employer" stations of this commuter rail are not even able to commute or have to jump through hurdles to even try to commute via rail.  This would be fixed with more frequent trains in the evenings and weekend trains.  

 

Luckily I won't be a shift worker much longer so I am looking forward to commuting via sunrail soon enough.

[Jernigan]

Great and accurate points. The pushback of the 7:15 (got to Orlando Health at 7:22) should help with the "normal time."

But the weekend part means that even if someone committed to riding it on weekdays, a monthly pass doesn't do them any good value-wise. It seems like it would be smart for SunRail and the hospitals (don't forget S Seminole in Longwood) come up with some sort of "H-Card" that could offer the same percentage savings that a monthly pass does but takes into account the fewer working days.

[JFW657]

Some type of OIA rail hub renderings:

[gibby]

I can't figure out how this will work.  If the Kissimmee-Orlando travel time is only increased by maybe 10 minutes then I could probably see it being alright.  Anything longer and it just makes no sense to me.