That doesn't surprised me - I saw that at least 2 runs ORL-MIA had sold out and many were nearly full in the Smart section. One of the local news stations figured out that if you were going roundtrip solo, the train was cheaper than driving with everything figured in.
Most of the subsidies were for mass transit, not specifically Brightline. Brightline used bonds, which would only cost taxpayers in case of a default
Flying from Miami to Orlando makes little sense time wise. When you add the drive to the airport and getting there 1+ hrs before departure and then ground transportation on the MCO end it takes at least as long as driving. Train will take longer because you have drive to the station, get there some amount of time before departure and then take some kind of vehicle to the ultimate destination. Driving with at least adaptive cruise control is the way to go. More advanced autonomous driving makes it even more of a no brainier.
And yet people fly that route everyday.
And yet people have been taking Amtrak from Orlando to Miami everyday for the past 40+ years and now Brightline is seeing good ridership.
I’d think this would depend on traffic, I’m not familiar with the Miami to Orlando route but I frequently drive from Vegas to LA and it’s a similar situation, flying makes no sense for me, by the time I drive to the airport, park, check in, fly, and then Uber to my destination it’s a 4-5 hour trip… or I can just drive and get there in 4.5 hours on average.
Miami to Orlando at night using the FL Turnpike and cars are flying 80-90mph , 3 1/2 hours one way.
At one time Disney had planned a monorail from Epcot to Downtown Disney.
I used to do that all the time. When factoring in Miami rush hour traffic on a Friday vs taking the metro to MIA and hopping on a 30 minute flight, it was a no-brainer.
I think you were being sarcastic but I did walk 3 of the four cars. I was in the premium car and walked all the way up to the vestibule between cars 1 and 2.
It serves a much bigger area if people would actually consider time to and at the Airport as a part of the Journey. (Admittedly Crossrail from Heathrow and TGV from CDG are fantastic services and help a lot with this aspect but the point stands, for dropping you off in the middle of Paris/Amsterdam, for most of the South East and a tad further for trains that go directly into St Pancras /Kings Cross)
Most people who fly from MIA to MCO are probably doing so because MIA is a primary airline hub, especially for flights to South America and the Caribbean. So Brightline isn't that much of a substitute.
Not exactly relevant to the topic at hand. Also, Miami's rush hour traffic is worse than DC's.
Extremely easy. Walkable from parts of downtown, but also accessible via the peoplemover/Metro. I took it previously when I lived in Miami to Palm Beach.
Lots of complaints about that service, since it's Uber connected. Namely that Ubers never are there.
