Rumor Higher Speed Rail from MCO to Disney World

[seascape]

Anyone who believes surveys on mass transit is doomed to go broke. It is politically correct to say you will use a train. However after it is built and you have to decide to spend the large amount on the ticket you will reconsider. Take NJ to NYC as an example. The cost of NJ Transit is just about the same as driving. People say they will take the train but don't because driving even with all the traffic on the GSP and NJ Turnpike is more convenient and faster. For the record NJ Transit is a huge money loser. Faster only because you don't have to wait for the train and all the stops.

As for these new lines to WDW, I think it's possible a line from MCO to WDW would be successful but only with Disney taking your bags, checked and carry on. from the airport to your room and including the ticket for the ride. The current magic Express is better than the proposed train to a central point because the current system takes you to you resort and doesn't require a connection and additional wait. The train from Miami and or Tampa will not be successful. The way the proposal looks profitable is using the real estate for the profit. The problem with that is it's the same process we used to build the railroads in the 1800s and once the it was developed the trains couldn't stand on their own and died. Finally, trains depend on a single route while busses have routes that can be changed and updated.

 

[gustaftp]

trains depend on a single route while busses have routes that can be changed and updated.

That tired talking point gets brought up time-and-time again, but in most places buses run along pretty much the same routes the former streetcars did. You usually cannot update bus routes all that easily because buses require a certain amount of space and infrastructure. The "flexibility" aspect is thus continually overstated, and rarely utilized.

Also, people who will not ride a bus WILL ride a train. Rail bias is a very real thing, and for good reason: trains provide a far superior experience over buses.

 

[mwf5555]

The Taxi/Limo, Bus, Uber/Lyft lobby will not let a link happen from the airport to Disney...

 

[JoeCamel]

The Taxi/Limo, Bus, Uber/Lyft lobby will not let a link happen from the airport to Disney...

They will try...

 

[MAGICFLOP]

Sorry, but this is a pipe dream... Disney is very gracious to give up the land for a station, but not willing to foot the bill..

If you want to dream about trains.. dream about WDW building a monorail system that hits the hotels and runs to the parks..

Build one train that loops to all 4 parks with a central stop ie TTC from there anther one that loops the hotels..

oops forgot ...the bill...

 

[UCF]

The Taxi/Limo, Bus, Uber/Lyft lobby will not let a link happen from the airport to Disney...

I imagine the taxi/uber/lyft people will win out of this is built and won't fight against it as someone who doesn't rent a car is more likely to use their services throughout their stay. Mears and the rental car companies are the ones who will fight this. (They're the ones who fought maglev to I-Drive as well, but this is beyond that stage at this point, they have an airport agreement)

Sorry, but this is a pipe dream... Disney is very gracious to give up the land for a station, but not willing to foot the bill..

If you want to dream about trains.. dream about WDW building a monorail system that hits the hotels and runs to the parks..

Build one train that loops to all 4 parks with a central stop ie TTC from there anther one that loops the hotels..

oops forgot ...the bill...

There is no talk of Disney footing the bill. We're more likely see Virgin Trains trying to steal the contract from Mears.

 

[raymusiccity]

They will try...

That's the truth! Take a look at the floundering Islip MacArthur Airport. They caved to the Unions and built all drive up access to Vets Hwy., despite having an existing LIRR Station on the opposite side of the airport!

 

[DisneyCane]

Orlando has 60+ million visitors a year, and many millions of those are going from the airport to Disney or I-Drive/Universal, so it sounds like its meeting your definition.

MCO has around 20 million passengers a year. Some significant percentage are Orlando area residents travelling someplace else. Some percentage are also connecting passengers. If we say that 60% are visitors to Orlando going to Disney or I-Drive/Universal that is 33,000 or so a day on average.

Certainly a large number but that can support a train route, however, probably not enough to support a train route profitably. The cost of building the infrastructure and running the service will require a fare to turn a profit that will end up being higher cost than Uber/Lyft, renting a car or even things like DME. Any of those options will take you to your destination without having to deal with being transported from a train station. If it were a subsidized public project just designed to relieve congestion then it could be effective.

And there's the convenience factor of being able to sit playing on your phone/laptop instead of dealing with South Florida traffic. And for most, it has nothing to do with money... thats why Boca, among the richest of the suburbs, has the busiest Tri-Rail station. And thats with stations that were not placed well in urban areas as Tri-Rail was created as a temporary alternate route to 95 during construction limiting capacity. And if you're not going to work with reserved parking, dealing with and paying for parking adds to the benefits of the system. Thats why Tri-Rail's trains are often full, even with the failure of the government to add more trains when they do fill up.

Tri-Rail had an operating loss of $120 million in 2017. That's with 4 million passengers a year. I think that the reason Boca is the busiest station has more to do with that people that live in Boca are split between commuters to Miami and WBP and are quite a distance from both. It is probably the location with the worst I-95 based commute in South Florida.
[/QUOTE]

Its not going to be cheaper, but it will remove the need to deal with all the headaches, like focusing on roads for 3+ hours, dealing with parking, and possibly dealing with an extra oil change, tire rotation, or mechanics visit. And we're living in a generation where the young people cannot put there phone down or 5 minutes while driving. If you're going to Disney or a place on the Sunrail connections, the train makes things easier, even if it doesn't save time (and for many, it will save time, but its not the main benefit)

Because you're totally underestimating the cost of driving. There's wear and tear, maintenance (tire rotations, replacements, oil, brakes, etc), depreciation, risk/insurance, parking costs, etc.

You are overestimating the share of wear and tear and maintenance costs for a 450 mile round trip. It will slightly move up your next scheduled maintenance. The IRS comes up with their 54.5 cents a mile rate out of thin air. There is no way that is reality. Otherwise a car driven 12000 miles a year would have $6,540 in ownership costs ON TOP OF age-based depreciation. You have to get into pretty expensive vehicles to have over $500 in total ownership costs per month. Insurance doesn't go up and the hotels I (and many other's stay in) don't have parking fees.

You may get rid of some headaches but you have others added like needing to be at the train station at a particular time and dealing with getting from the destination station to your final destination.

Plus people get tired from driving. If I want a one night/2 day trip to Disney from Miami, people will typically be worn out when they arrive from the drive, and then want to leave early to avoid driving tired for that second day. With the train, you can hop on in the morning, bring your breakfast or eat with the food service on the train, take a nap, relax, and arrive refreshed, and stay later into the night knowing your drive home from the train station won't be worse then a drive home from the theater. Infact, that makes a day trip possible from South Florida, its usually too daunting for most to have a vacation driving for 6 or 7 hours in a day.

Its not for everybody, there is no doubt penny pinchers likely won't be interested in the train service, in South Florida Tri-Rail/Metrorail service the same areas as Brightline at a much cheaper cost, but Brightline saves people time and is more comfortable. This isn't the suburban bus system designed to give poor people a way to get around with the name "mass transit" even though its far from that.

The driver may be a little tired but South Florida to Orlando isn't exactly a grueling road trip. I guess I could be different than some/most because I've done day trips from South Florida to WDW many times. I've also done things like driven up, stayed one night, attended the Epcot VIPassholder event until 11PM on the second day and driven home. The drive can be a little boring sometimes but a train ride isn't exactly exciting either. An audiobook can greatly help the drive.

 

[gustaftp]

You are overestimating the share of wear and tear and maintenance costs for a 450 mile round trip. It will slightly move up your next scheduled maintenance. The IRS comes up with their 54.5 cents a mile rate out of thin air. There is no way that is reality. Otherwise a car driven 12000 miles a year would have $6,540 in ownership costs ON TOP OF age-based depreciation. You have to get into pretty expensive vehicles to have over $500 in total ownership costs per month. Insurance doesn't go up and the hotels I (and many other's stay in) don't have parking fees.

He's really not.

When you calculate the cumulative total expenses related to a vehicle (purchase price, maintenance, fuel, storage, taxes, registration, tolls, tickets, insurance, etc) , and then divide that by the number of miles driven so far (or how many you anticipate driving for the vehicle's life), it suddenly becomes extremely evident that driving is a very expensive endeavor. However, it is separated into so many separate transactions that we don't usually think of driving in terms of total cost per mile.

Someone once told me that it costs about $1/mile to drive. I didn't believe him; I thought it was ludicrous. Then I calculated it out, and that actually is roughly correct.

Now, that assumes one is driving one's own car. A rental transaction obviously skews things differently.

Driving is extremely expensive -- and when you calculate things in a similar manner for your boilerplate mass transit system, the cost per passenger mile comes out in favor of the train.

 

[Texas84]

That tired talking point gets brought up time-and-time again,

Because it's true.

but in most places buses run along pretty much the same routes the former streetcars did.

Go pick any city's current bus route map and try to compare to old streetcar routes.

You usually cannot update bus routes all that easily because buses require a certain amount of space and infrastructure. The "flexibility" aspect is thus continually overstated, and rarely utilized.

Bus routes don't change continuously. Why would they except for demand? What infrastructure? More than trains? Of course buses are more flexible. Buses can go anywhere right now without building a track.

Also, people who will not ride a bus WILL ride a train. Rail bias is a very real thing, and for good reason: trains provide a far superior experience over buses.

Completely agree. I love trains but we aren't building fixed tracks everywhere I want or need to go. It will not happen.

 

[gustaftp]

Because it's true.

Incorrect, unless you think that pavement types, zoning, road width, bus stops (shelters? pole and bench? heaters? lighting? pavement? notification board?) don't make any difference in route placement. When you start taking that into account, where a bus can actually go dramatically narrows.

Go pick any city's current bus route map and try to compare to old streetcar routes.[/quote]

I already have. I'm part of a transit planning commission in my metropolitan area, and will be heading out to San Diego in February for a transit planning conference. Bus routes largely follow the same paths their predecessor streetcars did in my locality and across the country. With that kind of permanence of people using the same routes for over a century, it actually makes the decision to remove our rail transit systems -- and some people's resistance to bringing them back -- look short-sighted and foolish. Which it was and is.

Los Angeles is a good example of what I am talking about. https://la.curbed.com/2014/9/26/10042216/los-angeles-is-still-governed-by-longgone-streetcar-routes

Buses can go anywhere right now without building a track.

Talk to a bus driver about buses being able to go anywhere -- much less "right now". They can't. And as I previously mentioned, buses do require special infrastructure.

 

[HauntedPirate]

Not too late for that at all. We are seeing various cities like St. Paul-Minneapolis, Denver, Portland, and even Los Angeles install high capacity systems.

At a certain point, we have to admit that this experiment with the automobile has made our cities congested and unpleasant. The amount of space devoted to car storage is ludicrous, but with better planning and connecting clusters of activity, we can certainly have an effective transit system. In fact, I am currently on an advisory committee for installing a new BRT line in my community. It can and will be a success!

I live in the MSP area. Light-rail projects have been high on our Legislature's "dream projects" list for decades now, and quite frankly, they are billion-dollar boondoggles. We have three light rail lines, and they require heavy subsidies every single year. The first one replaced a perfectly fine bus route between the Mall of America, the airport, and downtown Minneapolis. The second one I still cannot figure out why it was built, as it goes northerly to areas that aren't as heavily populated. The third connects Minneapolis and St. Paul and, again, replaced a bus route. The problem is that too many major businesses are nowhere near these light rail lines. A fourth line has been proposed, from the southwest metro to downtown Minneapolis, but has run into heavy opposition and cost estimates that continue to be revised significantly upwards with each passing year.

Besides the local line between MOA and downtown Minneapolis, I've ridden the trains in Chicago, the subway in NYC, and the Metro and RER lines in Paris. They work there because the cities were build around mass transit. Here, they are trying to shoehorn light rail into an infrastructure and residential build-out that was never meant for it. Light rail can work, in a limited capacity, but the per-trip cost would need to more than double to break even each year. And good luck getting people to pay a higher per-trip fare - They never designed the platforms for any sort of security like in other major metropolitan areas, like the ones I mentioned, so passengers ride on the honor system. No gates, just walk up to the platform and you are expected to buy a ticket. They have "transit cops" that patrol the cars and ask for your fare, but I've only ever been asked for it maybe half a dozen times in the 150 or so trips I've taken on the light rail lines since they began operation (I used to park and take the light rail into downtown when I was a consultant and a client was in Minneapolis).

As for the thought of clustering things around rail lines - Great in theory, not so much in practice. There's only so much real estate that can be used around a rail line before people have to start walking further than they'll want to walk. 6 months of temps below freezing plus the logistics of carting around purchases in the snow and cold make that less than appealing up here, and often not very feasible. Even at Val d'Europe (the largest mall I've ever seen, one train stop from Disneyland Paris), you could do all your shopping there, but then you have to get home via the train with them.

 

[mkt]

The Taxi/Limo, Bus, Uber/Lyft lobby will not let a link happen from the airport to Disney...

Orlando's Taxi/Bus and Uber/Lyft lobby are in different and opposing hands. Also, if anything, I'd be more concerned about Disney's lobby - they'd fight anything that could potentially take tourist dollars away from them.

 

[gustaftp]

I live in the MSP area. Light-rail projects have been high on our Legislature's "dream projects" list for decades now, and quite frankly, they are billion-dollar boondoggles. We have three light rail lines, and they require heavy subsidies every single year. The first one replaced a perfectly fine bus route between the Mall of America, the airport, and downtown Minneapolis. The second one I still cannot figure out why it was built, as it goes northerly to areas that aren't as heavily populated. The third connects Minneapolis and St. Paul and, again, replaced a bus route. The problem is that too many major businesses are nowhere near these light rail lines. A fourth line has been proposed, from the southwest metro to downtown Minneapolis, but has run into heavy opposition and cost estimates that continue to be revised significantly upwards with each passing year.

Besides the local line between MOA and downtown Minneapolis, I've ridden the trains in Chicago, the subway in NYC, and the Metro and RER lines in Paris. They work there because the cities were build around mass transit. Here, they are trying to shoehorn light rail into an infrastructure and residential build-out that was never meant for it. Light rail can work, in a limited capacity, but the per-trip cost would need to more than double to break even each year. And good luck getting people to pay a higher per-trip fare - They never designed the platforms for any sort of security like in other major metropolitan areas, like the ones I mentioned, so passengers ride on the honor system. No gates, just walk up to the platform and you are expected to buy a ticket. They have "transit cops" that patrol the cars and ask for your fare, but I've only ever been asked for it maybe half a dozen times in the 150 or so trips I've taken on the light rail lines since they began operation (I used to park and take the light rail into downtown when I was a consultant and a client was in Minneapolis).

As for the thought of clustering things around rail lines - Great in theory, not so much in practice. There's only so much real estate that can be used around a rail line before people have to start walking further than they'll want to walk. 6 months of temps below freezing plus the logistics of carting around purchases in the snow and cold make that less than appealing up here, and often not very feasible. Even at Val d'Europe (the largest mall I've ever seen, one train stop from Disneyland Paris), you could do all your shopping there, but then you have to get home via the train with them.

You have no idea what you are talking about.

Our entire central cities were built around mass transit — look up the history of Thomas Lowry and Twin Cities Rapid Transit. Our cities were not built for the car nor for the massive amounts of space devoted to car storage.

Further, “they don’t come close to any major businesses” - what are you smoking and where can I get some? Downtown Mpls and St. Paul have the lions share of major businesses in the Twin Cities and LRT now runs through the heart of them. Plus the airport and Megamall are major businesses, as well.

And if you ever rode those buses compared to the light rail, you’d understand how much better the LRT is than driving or bussing into downtown. Many more people use the LRT than the “perfectly fine” buses they replaced.

And if the LRT wasn’t built then you have to devote more storage space for cars in an area that could be better utilized for businesses and housing.

Car storage is blight in a city.

 

[Astro_Digital]

Why should tax dollars pay for it ?
Disney = Jobs ..... but so does Universal what build the rail to Universal too ?

Disney already pays for Magical Express and Magical Express makes more sense.
Airport directly to your hotel, with a link what would you do Airport to a hub in WDW then take a bus anyway to get to you hotel ?

I can not see this ever happening.

 

[lazyboy97o]

Why should tax dollars pay for it ?
Disney = Jobs ..... but so does Universal what build the rail to Universal too ?

Disney already pays for Magical Express and Magical Express makes more sense.
Airport directly to your hotel, with a link what would you do Airport to a hub in WDW then take a bus anyway to get to you hotel ?

I can not see this ever happening.

This isn’t a government project.

 

[Lensman]

MCO has around 20 million passengers a year. Some significant percentage are Orlando area residents travelling someplace else. Some percentage are also connecting passengers. If we say that 60% are visitors to Orlando going to Disney or I-Drive/Universal that is 33,000 or so a day on average.

Certainly a large number but that can support a train route, however, probably not enough to support a train route profitably. The cost of building the infrastructure and running the service will require a fare to turn a profit that will end up being higher cost than Uber/Lyft, renting a car or even things like DME. Any of those options will take you to your destination without having to deal with being transported from a train station. If it were a subsidized public project just designed to relieve congestion then it could be effective

Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think that the stop at WDW is entirely driven by passenger traffic between MCO and WDW. That might potentially be a component but I suspect that traffic from South Florida and Tampa to WDW are also important considerations.

The plans indicate that the Brightline rail line is going west from MCO and going to go down the midline of I-4 to Tampa so it is going to pass pretty close to WDW anyway, so the only thing we're talking about here is either a station in the I-4 midline with a connector to terminal facilities on the side of I-4 OR an alignment which takes the rail line onto WDW property before hitting I-4 for its run to Tampa.

I'm not sure how important this stop is for Brightline. Typically, leisure travelers are cost-conscious and so it's hard to achieve profitability with them. But maybe this is a way for Brightline to round out their load factor to supplement their business customers who are really the ones covering their operating costs?

At any rate, I'm hoping that Brightline has reasonable leisure rates and my wife and I hope that there's a stop at WDW so we can just take a quick Uber/Lyft to our DVC and avoid having to deal with Magical Express.

You are overestimating the share of wear and tear and maintenance costs for a 450 mile round trip. It will slightly move up your next scheduled maintenance. The IRS comes up with their 54.5 cents a mile rate out of thin air. There is no way that is reality. Otherwise a car driven 12000 miles a year would have $6,540 in ownership costs ON TOP OF age-based depreciation. You have to get into pretty expensive vehicles to have over $500 in total ownership costs per month. Insurance doesn't go up and the hotels I (and many other's stay in) don't have parking fees.

The IRS 54.5 cents per mile includes 23 cents for depreciation. We could have a discussion about how much depreciation should be attributable to mileage vs the passage of time, but I suspect it's not worth covering. I covered my estimate of 30 cents per mile as my estimate for my marginal cost of driving but it obviously made no impact. But don't worry, I'm not offended! Ha!

BTW, who said to use the IRS 54.5 cents per mile? I don't see this posted anywhere in the thread, though I think I recall seeing someone mention it. (Annoyingly, it was also after my post of marginal costs between 25 and 30 cents per mile. Lol

 

[Progress.City]

I am of the opinion we will never see this come to life. This city/county/state is absolutely stupid when it comes to transportation. Building a train between the major cities is too "smart" and and would make life too "easy" for all of us. They can't even bother to run the SunRail on the weekends, what on earth makes anyone think this would be a success?

No, it will. It will because of the company behind it and their partners and supporters. If anyone could pull it off, it’s this one. If it were anyone else, the odds would be next to impossible.

 

[Progress.City]

Sorry, but this is a pipe dream... Disney is very gracious to give up the land for a station, but not willing to foot the bill..

If you want to dream about trains.. dream about WDW building a monorail system that hits the hotels and runs to the parks..

Build one train that loops to all 4 parks with a central stop ie TTC from there anther one that loops the hotels..

oops forgot ...the bill...

Not to bring back an old debate, but it’s not a question of who’s fronting the bill. Disney can and could front the bill if the company had any desire to do so. If not Disney Corporate, then the RCID would figure out a way to finance such a project and impose the necessary fees to make the yearly payments on the debt which they are empowered under law and able to do. Since Corporate Disney controls pretty much how the RCID votes, there would be no interest for the RCID to do such projects, unless Corporate Disney wished it so (no pun intended). As if now, Corporate Disney seems pretty much sold on the idea of gondolas instead of expansion of the other system. So, count on an expansion of the gondolas in any foreseeable future.

But, who knows? Anything could happen. Management could change, attitudes could change, technologies could improve, etc. Just 10 years ago, who would have thought a gondola system would get built today?

Basically, my point is that, if Corporate wants it, regardless of cost, they will build it. They just have to desire it enough to justify its cost. As of now, their desire to have an expanded monorail system isn’t enough to justify the cost for building it.

Down the street, however, there is talk that Comcast/Universal may be planning a short monorail of their own to connect the new park(s) and hotels they plan on building on the new property they recently acquired right near the OCCC to the other parks and hotels. Such a build may trigger a Disney response.

 

[DisneyCane]

He's really not.

When you calculate the cumulative total expenses related to a vehicle (purchase price, maintenance, fuel, storage, taxes, registration, tolls, tickets, insurance, etc) , and then divide that by the number of miles driven so far (or how many you anticipate driving for the vehicle's life), it suddenly becomes extremely evident that driving is a very expensive endeavor. However, it is separated into so many separate transactions that we don't usually think of driving in terms of total cost per mile.

Someone once told me that it costs about $1/mile to drive. I didn't believe him; I thought it was ludicrous. Then I calculated it out, and that actually is roughly correct.

Now, that assumes one is driving one's own car. A rental transaction obviously skews things differently.

Driving is extremely expensive -- and when you calculate things in a similar manner for your boilerplate mass transit system, the cost per passenger mile comes out in favor of the train.

For this discussion I'm assuming the traveler already owns the vehicle for daily life. My point is the incremental cost of a round trip from South Florida to Disney isn't as much as estimated.

I don't know what people pay at jiffy lube or wherever for an oil change because I do my own but even if it is $50, modern cars go at least 5000 miles between changes. That's a penny a mile or less than $5 for the round trip. Tire wear will be less than 3 cents per mile. The increased maintenance cost will be under $20.

As far as the cost compared to mass transit, if the cost per passenger mile is lower than for an automobile, why do almost all mass transit systems lose money? I think I've read that Brightline's business plan requires profiting of if the real estate at the stations.