Next Big Thing
Well-Known Member
This is exactly what I was trying to say a oage or two back.
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The Spirited Back Nine ...
- Thread starter WDW1974
- Start date
lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
How many Cast Members live in Lakeland and Tampa? How many can afford a $60/day commute?
And yet one can rent a car at Walt Disney World or easily grab a taxi. The price difference is also so great now between on and off property accommodations that there is little risk of losing people, as those staying at Disney accommodations are rather financially committed to staying at Walt Disney World.
roj2323
Well-Known Member
How do you figure $60?
lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
Promises made regarding what tickets for the high speed rail would run plus actual costs for tickets on existing lines. No hourly employee can afford to take a high speed train every day to work.
roj2323
Well-Known Member
while I certainly agree I thought the tampa to orlando leg was going to be operated as a commuter line and the orlando (Kissimmee really) to Miami line was going to be run similar to Amtrak.
lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
There were lots of promises of low ticket prices and high frequencies of service, all of which were above and beyond the busiest lines in the world. Even if the trains ran as often as promised, cost is still a huge issue for would be commuters. Even if there were subsidies for commuters, how many people really live that far out? Tampa-Orlando is just not a heavily trafficked corridor.
TP2000
Well-Known Member
Tampa-Orlando had only four stations; downtown Tampa, Lakeland, WDW, and Orlando Intl. Airport. Governor Scott, when he was for the plan, stated publicly that one-way tickets between Tampa and Orlando would be "30 Dollars" each way. That price was considered unrealistically cheap and just politician babble to build support. The actual ticket cost would have been much higher each way, and the railroad would still need massive public subsidies each year to keep operating. That's how those things go.
As if the cost for a ticket versus driving a car weren't prohibitive enough, even when gas was $4.00 a gallon a few years ago, the actual travel time didn't save anyone much time. The "High Speed" part wasn't that impressive.
Convention Center - Orlando Airport = 11 Miles, 21 minutes by Car in congestion, 11 minutes by Train
Disney – Orlando Airport = 19 Miles, 34 minutes by Car in congestion, 21 minutes by Train
Downtown Tampa – Orlando Airport = 84 Miles, 1 hour 31 minutes by Car in congestion, 1 hour 4 minutes by Train
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_high_speed_rail
That's not including the extra time needed at each ends of the train journey to park at the station, get tickets, check baggage or wait for 15 minutes, exit station, and get transportation from station to an actual final destination. A car stuck in congestion at rush hour would get its passengers to the final destination (likely a hotel lobby or WDW parking lot) faster and cheaper, and many folks would also consider the car journey easier.
Florida HSR just didn't pencil out for anyone, really.
roj2323
Well-Known Member
You obviously don't live down here. The Tampa - orlando I-4 corridor has a ton of traffic and the "rush hour" backups eat up tons of time. Exit 7 to 14 eastbound, exit 67 to 58 westbound. Additionally there are lots of accidents and since there is no real alternative route between the two cities it can get a little crazy when they shut down the road for a fatality which happens at least once a month.
TP2000
Well-Known Member
I think the concept of owning a personal vehicle that can take you anywhere you want, whenever you want, is too attractive to go away. At least until we invent Star Trek style transporter beams. Cars 30 years from now may not run on gasoline; they may run on Natural Gas, or Hydrogen Fuel Cells, or electric batteries, or any combination of those fuels. But cars will still be here, and families will still be loading into them for trips to Disney World.
The only thing that will stop that is fuel that is horrifically expensive, like the $70.00 per gallon scenarios I mentioned earlier that are required to finally make Amtrak's Silver Star competitive with a newer Chevy Malibu for a family of four.
But when you get to the point that gas (or whatever fuel is required) is $70.00 per gallon, the economy and society would have ground to such a cataclysmic halt that the least of our worries would be WDW, if the parks were even still in operation at that point. (The real societal emergency would kick in around $25.00 per gallon, I'd imagine, and the parks would be closing shortly after that.)
In the meantime, it's great news that a family of four in Tampa can climb into a very safe and efficient new Chevy Malibu and drive the entire family round trip to WDW for about $25.00. Long distance travel has never been cheaper, or safer, or more pleasant for Americans. And it seems to get safer every year, too.
lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
When compared to the only two consistently profitable high speed routes, Lyon-Paris and Osaka-Tokyo, Tampa-Orlando is nothing. There is not even regular air service between the two cities, something you do see available along other high speed rail corridors. The problems are more an over emphasis on highways, not the pure volume necessary to support rail, much less high speed rail. There may be plenty of people annoyed at delays that get high in terms of time, but the actual numbers are nothing compared to areas where rail is a real and useful component of the transit infrastructure.
TP2000
Well-Known Member
BINGO!
We'd talked about this four years ago when HSR was last being discussed here, but there is no current demand for mass travel between Orlando and Tampa. Tokyo to Osaka currently has 58 scheduled flights per day on a half dozen airlines. Several of those flights are even on large jumbo jets configured as air shuttles in a high density seating plan for that very short flight.
There's not a single scheduled airline flight per day between Tampa and Orlando. Not even a small regional carrier like a UnitedExpress or American Eagle flight in a small plane. There's just no inter-city travel market there at all. Nothing.
The current Tampa Union Station, a modest but very charming little station, served about 20,000 train passengers last year as the terminus of Amtrak's Silver Star service up the Eastern Seaboard.
Tampa Union Station - Serving 2 Trains Per Day In 2015
For a Disney and HSR reference, Anaheim's old train station served 330,000 train passengers last year, before the move three weeks ago to the dramatically larger ARTIC station nearby.
Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center (ARTIC) - Serving 54 Trains Per Day in 2015
But if Anaheim and SoCal can't even get HSR to pencil out, or show up on the horizon at any time in the next 20 years, then how the heck did Tallahassee expect a HSR system to pencil out for Tampa-Orlando??? I think the icy reception from Orlando-based Disney execs a decade ago had more to it than not making things easier for Universal and Sea World.
roj2323
Well-Known Member
I was much more interested in a normal under 100mph service between the cities with stops in the major towns along the way much like Chicago's Metra system. (sunrail?) The train is more about connivence than speed. Right now for example it would take 4+ hours to get to WDW from Lakeland via bus. This is being addressed now but not having to own a car would be a great opportunity to save money for some in this area.
lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
I think that you would find that many of us who think the high speed rail project was a dumb idea would agree with upgrading the rail connection with conventional rail that could easily make very similar trip times.
Most of the US cities that have efficient public transit systems had a dense population using the core system before the individual automobile became the norm - think NYC, Boston, Chicago. They are also cities that had enough riders so that rails (including subways) could be expanded from the core as the population expanded further from the center in a widening pattern around an existing core. But these are not areas where there was a small somewhat dense population - think Orlando, Atlanta, Tampa - with little density around the core - until the personal automobile and Southern migration beginning post WWII. And then the population grew in pockets far from the center (in public transportation terms), with lots of room. So multiple spurs would have to be built going in various directions.
And this would assume that everyone living in those areas is going into a central downtown area to work - which is not true for most of these areas. Businesses moved away from the downtown areas to office parks, etc where the costs were less and there is room for expansion. So employees need to drive there.
And this would assume that everyone living in those areas is going into a central downtown area to work - which is not true for most of these areas. Businesses moved away from the downtown areas to office parks, etc where the costs were less and there is room for expansion. So employees need to drive there.
the.dreamfinder
Well-Known Member
New concept art of HKDL's upcoming hotel, Disney Explorers Lodge. (The lack of possessive bothers me too)
via Disney and More
via Disney and More
stevehousse
Well-Known Member
Looks like a good mix between Poly and AKL mixed together!
michmousefan
Well-Known Member
A very funny (quite a testament to the writers that it's still this good) Simpsons last night, with a trip to "Dizzneeland" and a few good jokes about the Lucasfilm purchase.
RSoxNo1
Well-Known Member
On Pirates of the Caribbean, "They had to change it due to massive complaints by two people"
Mike S
Well-Known Member
I liked the beginning part in Dizzneeland more than the rest of it. It was pretty funny
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