ford91exploder
Resident Curmudgeon
DL's a place to 'Hang Out' meet your friends without the risk of being mugged while there, That's one factor of it's appeal to locals.
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The Spirited Back Nine ...
- Thread starter WDW1974
- Start date
ford91exploder
Resident Curmudgeon
Gov. did the right thing by killing that particular boondoggle, A light rail system on the same route makes sense and should have been done years ago but even a light rail system will need subsidy to operate.
There are only a few routes in the US which have the traffic density to support a HSR system. The 'Train to Nowhere' in CA is getting ready to fail because of lawsuits and buyers remorse and it does not have an economic driver.
Basically the only routes which make sense are
Boston to DC
Chicago to NYC
Philly to NYC
LA to San Francisco
Dallas to Austin (this one's a reach)
HSR's sweet spot are runs between 200-600 miles with few stops. I'm a supporter of HSR but there are very few places in the US which can support a system and that's spoken as a frequent Acela rider (which is hobbled by the need to STOP frequently and share infrastructure with conventional trains).
Darth Sidious
Authentically Disney Distinctly Chinese
I just wish Long Island had something faster than what we currently have to commute into Manhattan. It's quicker to drive but that's assuming there isn't traffic which there always is here in good ol NY.
Progress.City
Well-Known Member
I see your point. When I found these, I was surprised that the projected included more than just the train. Of interest to me was the I-Drive APM with its stop at Universal. This and the planned Cocoa Beach monorail were programed into Phase II of the project.
ford91exploder
Resident Curmudgeon
Even though that project had 'cool stuff' it's economic impossibility would have poisoned the use of those technologies in appropriate venues.
A APM would have been cool but it would never work in thunderstorm alley, What would make sense would be a dedicated bus lane on I-Drive with 'trackless trolleys' quiet, green and low maintenance and very cheap to operate.
http://www.angelfire.com/mb2/orion5bjc/trackless_trolleys.htm
ford91exploder
Resident Curmudgeon
I've taken the LIRR fron Ronkonkoma a bunch of times, The real problem is congestion at Penn Station
PhotoDave219
Well-Known Member
Nah. No comparison. I've lived in both places.
When there's a problem on I-4, it doesn't screw up traffic on the east coast. You close the beltway (Lets say, haz mat incident in Springfield for example) and things disrupt for hundreds of miles.
bhg469
Well-Known Member
Good ol overpopulation! Way too may people crammed in too small of an area for work. Living space near work is so insane that the commute is necessary. It sort of makes you wonder what everyone was thinking, setting up the meat of the city on an island..
JoeCamel
Well-Known Member
It was cheap ($24 in trade goods!)
ford91exploder
Resident Curmudgeon
At one time NYC was a working City where you had manufacturing and housing for the workers, Since it became a Financial center you have massive economic distortions because of the gross overcompensation of a small segment of the corporate employees - you have what were once affordable abodes for 'regular' people turned into million dollar pied-a-terre's.
Now the city is largely occupied by the 'Nobles' and the serf class needs to find housing elsewhere.
Progress.City
Well-Known Member
What they should have done was to just build the electrified tracks any way (since its Phase I construction was already paid for in full by the Federal government), and lease out use of the system to private companies for passenger and freight use.
The APM was added to Phase II because Universal said it was unfair that the system would have stopped at Disney, as well as providing a monorail link to the Disney cruise port at Cocoa Beach (which was added to Phase II to get Disney to agree to build the WDW station for Phase I and to provide services for it).
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lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
Increasing highway capacity increases highway traffic.
Would you buy a Ferrari as your commuter car? The high speed rail project was a lot of money with only a few minutes in travel time saved over car or even the existing Amtrak service. For a family of four, gas would have had to hit something like $10/gallon in order for the train to have been a cheaper alternative.
Light rail is about short distances and high density, neither of which exist on the Tampa-Orlando corridor. It's just not a very heavily trafficked area when looked at broadly.
71jason
Well-Known Member
Can't believe I'm the defender of local government, but realistically, the traffic you're describing is maybe 5 weeks out of the year--10% of the time. Yeah, Friday nights get backed up, but that's to be expected, and nowhere near holiday traffic level. And it's not like WDW (or any other park or local business) handles the crowds any better--see the mob scenes at Pecos Bills or Uni bag check or the Ovation Publix. You can't quadruple a town's population overnight and not expect issues like this, but you also can't build 12-lane highways for 10% of the year. (The tourists would find a way to mess it up no matter.)
The real solution, the one that is anathema around here: WDW needs to jack up rates even more during holiday weeks. $250 single day tickets to MK the last week of December.
bhg469
Well-Known Member
Or jujust live and work in a city that isn't so terrible
71jason
Well-Known Member
QFT. And the only two large single-site employers are the hospital--nowhere near the tourist area--and WDW, which isn't crazy about any idea that gives guests easy access to other Orlando attractions. Most everyone else is going to need a ride from the train station to work (or walk in the heat/humidity/thunderstorms).
lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
That would be illegal. The funds were for high speed passenger rail and nothing else. There is also already a freight line that connects Tampa and Orlando.
Progress.City
Well-Known Member
As I said, we should have taken the $6 billion in FREE money and built the electrified tracks any way (all costs were covered by that $6 billion). Instead of running the passenger service ourselves, we could have leased the tracks to more than one company to create a competitive marketplace. The tracks could have also been leased to freight, as there currently is no east-west freightline in Central Florida.
EDIT - I was typing this as you typed your answer above. In response to that: Oh, okay.
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lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
The money was not free. It came with conditions that were not allowed under your idea. That money would be called back by the Feds and suddenly Florida would be on the hook for $6 billion in construction that had already occurred. No company is going to volunteer to undertake signifigant loses to operate a mandatory high speed rail service.
DisneyElephant
Active Member
Lost all 4 grandparents to smoking related illnesses, including an otherwise healthy Type 1 Diabetic Grandmother who died of Lung Cancer from being a lifelong smoker. I don't post often, but positive thoughts to you and yours and Happy New Year!
ford91exploder
Resident Curmudgeon
And here is the fallacy the money is NOT FREE it came from taxpayers and after it's been filtered through DC it's about 1/2-1/4 of the money that came from taxpayers in the first place.
Worked for a state welfare department as a network architect, Turns out only about $0.25 of every dollar spent actually goes to the beneficiaries back of envelope we computed we could send $100K checks to every recipient in every program and STILL return more than half of our budget.
It's why many school districts are abandoning the federal lunch program, The expense involved in accounting for all that 'FREE' money is actually more than they are receiving from the USG for the program so that free money is not FREE after all.
TANSTAAFL or There Ain't No Such thing as a free lunch.