Florida rejects Obama's choo-choo train money.

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K1052

Elite Member
Aug 21, 2003
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and the passenger cost of these trains is ridiculous.

When Wisconsin went through their stupid obamatrain saga, they touted that a 1 way ticket between Milwaukee and Madison would only be $13.

umm ok.

I have a family of 4, round trip drive + having my car in town = about $15 in gas.

Obama choo choo, $104 dollars + taxi or bus fair. Also there is NO time saved, that drive is about 55 minutes each way, no slower than the train.

The Madison to Milwaukee rail wasn't about commuting between the two.
It was about the link to Chicago, as it was supposed to be an extension of the heavily used Hiawatha Service.
 

EagleKeeper

Discussion Club Moderator<br>Elite Member
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Oct 30, 2000
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Its NOT a clusterfuck. Its perfectly FINE for 99% of it. The problem is like with ANY city, once you hit the 'downtown' area there is limited space and lots of people. It gets congested.. But how is a train going from Orlando to Tampa going to help the 99% of those cars who are going from work in Orlando to home in the burbs or work in Tampa to home in the burbs? Its NOT. How many people work in Orlando and live in Tampa and vice versa? I'd guess about 4 people.

You obviously have never driven I-4 in the morning or evening. This is completely not true. It is bottleneck congested traffic in the morning and evening during normal commute times. Not saying a train will fix this, and not saying it won't fix it either. You just have no clue or you are blatantly lying about this traffic.

You are probably one of the people who said we didn't need the over pass for the cross-town expressway too, and it has helped tremendously.

Its 85 miles between Tampa and Orlando. How fast do you think the train is going to go? Either it won't have any stops and will be worthless, or they will have say 10 stops and it will only get up to about 75mph before the next stop anyway. The same as all the cars on the freeway! Who won't have to stop every 8 miles!

If people were able to drive 75 miles an hour on the highway there wouldn't be any traffic problems. During rush hour the average MPH is 40-45mph,,

I4 is bad during rush hour from US27 up into Sanford.
Any light rail solution for that corridor could be useful, especially with feeders from the Airport and Disney and UCF.

High speed rail along that stretch would be a waste - for half the trip; the train would have to be preparing to stop.

Unless you build two sets of tracks from US27 north; one for light rail and the other for HSR.

Commuter rail from running in some pattern connecting MCO, UCF, downtown, Disney and I4 would be practical. Spoke & hub or just a loop, either would make a difference. Spoke/hub will be more beneficial and potentially get people out of the vehicles.

Where the HSR rail would tie into???

I do not know enough about Tampa but given that there is an airport, downtown, Bush Gardens and USF, some similar situational pattern could exist.

HSR is not, build it and they will come situation. It is a we have a serious problem and HSR will help solve it better than adding lane miles.

From US27 to US75 there is no real congestion traffic at any hour not caused by road construction. Therefore HSR is not really justifiable there.

There are AMTRACK runs from Miami to Orlando and north. when I lived in Fort Lauderdale, those train cars were maybe 1/3 full at the most.

The commuter rail from Palm Beach to Miami was heavily full. And that line ran down the coast stopping in every city along the way. It was used by commuters and helped offload I95 and the Turnpike

As others have stated, the demand for light commuter rail exists in Orlando - the need/demand/vision for HSR connecting to Mamii, Jacksonville, Tamp does not.

Now if you want to run HSR from Miami up to Atlanta; that might be justifiable.
That could connect Miami, Orlando and then buzz along I75 with a feeder into Tampa.
But the money wold be better spent inside Fla by puttign up commuter rail in the Orlando area.
 

Siddhartha

Lifer
Oct 17, 1999
12,505
3
81
Lets hope more "Red" States follow Florida and turn down Federal funds. Maybe that will mean more funds for the rest of the country.
 

K1052

Elite Member
Aug 21, 2003
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Lets hope more "Red" States follow Florida and turn down Federal funds. Maybe that will mean more funds for the rest of the country.

This is pretty much the last one. Iowa is still on the fence.

The Florida plan was a marginal case at best for HSR. CA will probable get the lions share of the funds.
 

EagleKeeper

Discussion Club Moderator<br>Elite Member
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Oct 30, 2000
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Lets hope more "Red" States follow Florida and turn down Federal funds. Maybe that will mean more funds for the rest of the country.

This is pretty much the last one. Iowa is still on the fence.

The Florida plan was a marginal case at best for HSR. CA will probable WASTE the lions share of the funds.

corrected:hmm:
 

K1052

Elite Member
Aug 21, 2003
47,993
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corrected:hmm:

I'd rathe seen the money go to 225mph rail in the NEC but since CA is the only place with it's shit together and public/state gov backing there is little choice. I do think their system will ultimately be successful though
 

EagleKeeper

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Oct 30, 2000
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Lets hope more "Red" States follow Florida and turn down Federal funds. Maybe that will mean more funds for the rest of the country.

Any money accepted would be 100% on debt.

Tell me again how this benefits anybody.

CA gets the funds
CA gets the constuction work

The rest of the country gets saddled with the lions share of paying the costs.
CA comes hand in hand to the Feds when the unit is operating asking for subsidies to keep it going. Lack of ridership well below rosy projections.
 

WHAMPOM

Diamond Member
Feb 28, 2006
7,628
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So glad we turned this away in WI too.

What!! Did you miss the plans for high speed train route? Milwaukee- Madison- Lacrose- Rochester- Sant Paul- Eau Claire- Green Bay- Oshkosh-Milwaukee and down through Chicago to a ?Eastern? system hook up. Also serving a new international air port between Madison and Milwaukee to replace O'Hare. Oh well, it will never happen now.
 

EagleKeeper

Discussion Club Moderator<br>Elite Member
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Oct 30, 2000
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I'd rathe seen the money go to 225mph rail in the NEC but since CA is the only place with it's shit together and public/state gov backing there is little choice. I do think their system will ultimately be successful though

Someone needs to do/find a study on how many filled seat miles it takes to come close to the break even point for rail.
 

thegimp03

Diamond Member
Jul 5, 2004
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I think putting this train through CA is a waste of money given how cheap Southwest tickets are.
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
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CA gets the funds
CA gets the constuction work

The rest of the country gets saddled with the lions share of paying the costs.
CA comes hand in hand to the Feds when the unit is operating asking for subsidies to keep it going. Lack of ridership well below rosy projections.

Of course you could also look at it as CA getting its money back. As one of the wealthiest states, it gets back something like $.80 per dollar it pays to the federal treasury. All that money buys a lot of trains.
 

PeshakJang

Platinum Member
Mar 17, 2010
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Someone needs to do/find a study on how many filled seat miles it takes to come close to the break even point for rail.

As I posted in the first train thread, example being BART, they would have to double their fare revenue to *almost* break even on operating costs. As it is, they lose about $300 Million /year before subsidies.
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
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As I posted in the first train thread, example being BART, they would have to double their fare revenue to *almost* break even on operating costs. As it is, they lose about $300 Million /year before subsidies.

But again, why does that matter? Of course that means that budgetary outlays need to be altered, but the real measure of a transit system is how many people it moves around at what speed and at what cost. If it's combination of speed/cost (total, including construction costs) is better than what we had before, it's successful. If not, then it isn't.

What I want to see is a study that addresses that.
 

Steeplerot

Lifer
Mar 29, 2004
13,051
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I think putting this train through CA is a waste of money given how cheap Southwest tickets are.

Taking a plane is not viable for a lot of folks. Besides huge delays/travel hassles of outlying airports CA cannot handle much more air traffic in that corridor already anyhow. Why do you think the ticket are so cheap? It a major pain in the ass to go from LAX to anywhere useful in LA. Not to mention the pitiful amount you can carry with you on a plane. You a drummer in a band? Too bad, you HAVE to drive that awful route and go through all the LA nonsense to get anywhere, taking 3x as long as the train would. Take a plane? Its an extra 2 hours to get to downtown and 100+$ in a taxi.

Fuel from LA-SF is terrible, as there are mountains ranges along the whole CA pacific coast, a pilot has to literally acend at a high rate to even get out of the Los Angeles basin (surrounded by the huge snow covered mountains) and then drop right back down to SFO just past the San Bruno mountain range, no cruising (which is the ONLY way a jet can be even somewhat fuel efficient).

The CA line makes good sense really on many levels. Besides being faster.
 
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PeshakJang

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Mar 17, 2010
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Of course you could also look at it as CA getting its money back. As one of the wealthiest states, it gets back something like $.80 per dollar it pays to the federal treasury. All that money buys a lot of trains.

CA's tax dollars have already been spent, long before any money comes back. Any money going back to the state for trains, and a lot of other stuff, is 100% financed on debt right now.

As I said... would it be nice to have a train going from Indy to Chicago? Sure. Unfortunately, the benefits of building and operating it are far, far less than the consequences of 100% financing through borrowed money.

If CA wants a train, and thinks it will benefit them, then perhaps they can take out a loan for the entirety of it, and put it in themselves.
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
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CA's tax dollars have already been spent, long before any money comes back. Any money going back to the state for trains, and a lot of other stuff, is 100% financed on debt right now.

As I said... would it be nice to have a train going from Indy to Chicago? Sure. Unfortunately, the benefits of building and operating it are far, far less than the consequences of 100% financing through borrowed money.

If CA wants a train, and thinks it will benefit them, then perhaps they can take out a loan for the entirety of it, and put it in themselves.

That's not really relevant to my point. Its money was spent subsidizing other states for projects that would have needed debt financing instead. Their debt is no better or worse than CA's for this purpose, and so there is no distinction here.

(I also have no problem with government debt at this point, btw.)
 

chucky2

Lifer
Dec 9, 1999
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36
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Er, you mean by CA borrowing from the federal government, or you mean the Federal government taking out a loan itself to pay for HSR in CA?

I surely hope you mean the former, and not the latter...

Chuck
 

Steeplerot

Lifer
Mar 29, 2004
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If CA wants a train, and thinks it will benefit them, then perhaps they can take out a loan for the entirety of it, and put it in themselves.

CA is already getting our train.

We can just call it "taking it off your tab" since the red states enjoy sucking up our evil CA socialist tax monies the rest of the time. Don;t worry, it will help our economy, then the red states can have more too. You guys are welcome. ():)
 
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chucky2

Lifer
Dec 9, 1999
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As long as you're paying for it, and not the Fed, then that's super. If the Fed is giving - not loaning - you money, then someone with the Fed should be dropped kicked in the nuts.
 

PeshakJang

Platinum Member
Mar 17, 2010
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That's not really relevant to my point. Its money was spent subsidizing other states for projects that would have needed debt financing instead. Their debt is no better or worse than CA's for this purpose, and so there is no distinction here.

Almost *all* discretionary spending is 100% debt. If you think a project has enough economic benefit to justify borrowing 100% of the cost, then there is no reason why your state couldn't do it without relying on the rest of the nation.


(I also have no problem with government debt at this point, btw.)

That's the problem. Some states do have a problem with government debt, and do not want to be responsible for the debt of states that do not have a problem with it.

But like I said, if a state really believes that the economic benefits outweigh the costs of 100% financing with debt, then there should be no issues with that state borrowing the money itself.