I think this is better here than the “other cities” topic.
Having come from Central Florida, I’m pretty jealous.
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When it extends to Tampa, and possibly Jacksonville, it could be a real game changer.
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A decade ago the governor shot down federal funds that would have contributed considerably to a rail that would have connected Orlando/Tampa. I believe at the time the pair of cities also had a bid in to host the Olympics. That all fell apart. I’m focused on Raleigh now. 
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Yup. Rick Scott killed the Miami-to-Tampa via Orlando high-speed rail project in 2011 as he felt that the state of Florida couldn’t afford the overhead of a publicly funded system like this.
What’s different about this go-around is that the Florida East Coast Railway (now currently owned by Grupo México) owns these rails. An FEC spin-off company, now owned by Fortress Investment Group and Virgin Group, has been created as a tenant.
Operating as Brightline and now Virgin Trains USA, the Miami-to-Orlando segment was started using a $1.6B loan funded (controversially) through the Railroad Rehabilitation & Improvement Financing program. This is a funding stream created through the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21). The origin is called Miami Central which is on land that the FEC retained when they demolished their old downtown rail terminal, retaining it as a parking lot all of these years. The terminal will be at Orlando Int’l Airport’s new South Terminal Complex.
Virgin is now the sole bidder for the Orlando-to-Tampa segment which will travel at least part of the route down the median of Interstate 4 (with a likely stop near DisneyWorld, but not Universal). The new Tampa terminal’ location has yet to be determined.
So, it’s a public-private project in a sense. And, Virgin is moving forward with the languishing Las Vegas Railway Express project (previously dubbed ‘X-Train’) having just secured a $3.2B bond from the state of California. This will be a build-operate project with Fortress/Virgin taking on the risk instead of the State of California. (Especially given how CAHSR isn’t doing so well.)
It’s a Florida project, yes, but illustrative of something different being that Virgin has made noise to kickstart a Charlotte-to-Atlanta higher-speed rail project.
I’m not saying that it’s a perfect model, as Virgin’s been making moves to add in-fill stations at Aventura, Hollywood, and an extension to Port Miami to feed their new cruise ship terminal. So, they’ve not been seeing quite the revenue stream for their more upscale product. And, that’s squeezing Tri-Rail from using FEC tracks as well.
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Thanks for the background!!
Well, it took having twice the population of NC and a gigantic tourist economy between Orlando and South Florida to make this train happen.
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Not to mention a railroad landowner who believes that there is money to be made again to haul passengers.
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This, though, makes me curious about how much Virgin Trains USA is making off of its real estate arm -and how viable the rail company is, on its own…
(If you don’t pay attention to the Future of Transit thread, we were talking about the same topic here, just the other day)
Interesting question, yes. Henry Flagler was the Commodore Vanderbilt of his day for the eastern coast of Florida when he laid out the Florida East Coast Railway down to Key West. The FEC has gone through so many ownership changes, it’s hard to say how much land they actually control. And, most of those communities along its route owe their initial existence to it. But, they do exert a fair degree of political pull in how they’ve made this run of private carriage of passengers.
That being said, the in-fill stations which are being proposed: Port Miami, Aventura, and Boca Raton as well as Cocoa, Stuart, and Hollywood have indicated that they need more feeders into the system to make it a financially viable proposition.
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22 posts were merged into an existing topic: Commuter Rail - Garner to West Durham
I truly appreciate your enthusiasm and believe in this proposal. However, I have been around long enough to view it with less than rose colored glasses let’s say. But with that being said, my fingers are crossed and the collective “we” are all aboard, with tickets in hand…Lol
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We will never get rid of traffic altogether; no transit system will do that. Just look at NYC, SF, Boston, Chicago for examples. However, just imagine who much worse traffic would be in these places without collocated high density housing within a business district, or without commuter rail from various suburbs, or within the core of the city itself.
Anything and everything that we can do to take cars off the roads, reduce the number of new cars on the roads, or shorten the total miles driven are good things to consider in a fast growing metro like Raleigh.
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“Officials are also revisiting the idea of building a light rail system, which was scrapped in 2019, if it proves to be cost-effective.”
I wonder what they mean by that, I doubt they’re going to look at the DOLR plan as it goes nowhere near RTP.
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Interesting. But that article is mostly high level fluff that has really not much merit in it.
Looking at the sketch I mocked up, you could maybe flatten that main line out and have a secondary Airport / RTP branch line?
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I saw that in the article as well and was going to post. Wondering if this is just normal “we are assessing all options” speak, or if it is actually back on the table. Maybe Biden’s planned infrastructure investment makes local govt think we have a shot at getting something funded.
Judging by how long it is taking to get BRT going, I wouldn’t hold my breath even if they are serious.
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Part of me wonders if there is a little foreshadowing by the Secretary of Transportation coming later this week. It could be nothing, but with being one of the fastest growing urban(ish) areas in the country and a huge jobs announcement this week AND a visit from the Feds (including a meeting with the mayor), part of me just wonders if there is something in the works. Like a HGTV show, we’re just waiting for “the reveal”
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in the grand scheme of things, the Apple hub is only 3,000 jobs. It’s not like this is a sizable investment that nobody knew was coming…everyone knows that this area has been growing and will continue to do so. I mean obviously once the current Wake Transit Plan is complete with BRT rolled out there will be opportunities to build on that and to do more. At this point, I just want people to be focused on getting completed projects on the ground.
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Milazzo is the chair of RTA, an organization whose policy agenda is to SPEND MOAR ON TRANSPORTATION, BUILD ALL THE THINGS. They do have some good ideas and they do have the ear of electeds at all levels of government, but of course they are going to advocate for spending more - it’s just what they do. They are big advocates for transit but they also were the driving force behind pushing the schedule on Complete 540.
Dear God, I hope light rail is not back on the table. Electric frequent regional rail, yes please! Light rail, no thx sir.
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What’s the difference between Light Rail and Electric Regional rail in this case?
To explain myself further.
The main difference is that electric regional rail is compatible with freight, passenger, and high speed rail, and always runs in a railroad corridor; light rail is its own thing and can run in street medians, and in close proximity with pedestrians and cars, but not close to freight trains, and usually has slower top speeds.
I think a full, dedicated set of regional rail tracks between Raleigh and Durham is needed - but the problem is, if you build light rail, it either ends there or you have to pay to build more tracks. If you build regional rail, you can jump over onto the S-line and H-line existing tracks to extend further out into the suburbs. Also, regional rail can usually be close to freight tracks (a buffer of like 10 feet is often considered sufficient) whereas light rail needs something more like 50 feet and/or crash walls.
Light rail is also slow. LRVs often top out around 55 mph; electric regional trains can do double that.
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