You might someday ride the Florida East Coast Railway to work, ...

The only way to fund this project seriously is to return to properly tax corporate power

Yes, bring it on. Meanwhile, we'll sacrifice our young people for oil in Arab countries for our God, His Majesty the Car.

yes and there also should be a high speed acela type train to orlando amd tampa. since the service is slow and unreliable.

Did they forget that Tri-Rail isn't exactly a success? People do not want to deal with trains.

I don't know. Tri-Rail struggles because it doesn't connect to anything and with a few exceptions (like downtown West Palm) isn't within walking distance of much. If you had trains that were more integrated with their communities, they'd get more riders.

Hae to disagree with Exile's comments, I take the Tri-Rail to work often (6AM Northbound) it's always full, and not unusual to see folks standing for part of the ride. I look forward to this summer when the last tracks finally go in and they increase the number of trains available, it may well make my commute easier. This other line does serve a lot more communities, and could potentially draw a lot of folks to commute this way. As for the moaners about the train sounds, I have no sympathy for them, the trains were here long before they moved in, and if they failed to take such in to consideration, neiher the trains nor the potential riders should be forced to suffer for that, sell your home and move somewhere else. Two points I do want to make is the commuter trains will be a lot lighter weight wise and a lot less cars than the current heavily loaded freights that do travel it. Delays from them passing railroad crossings will be on average 2 minutes at best should you get caught by one passing On the already heavily congested roads, this would be no worse than the usal delays, and might even shorten some of the time you wait for getting through some of the heavy use road intersections where you may have to wait for 2-3 traffic signal cycles to reach and get through it.

Bus routes are superior in many ways to a train. Why?
1) Because we already have roads all over the place.
2) Bus routes can be altered, a train track cannot. 3) Buses are more easily converted to utilizes existing "green" technologies.
4) Replacement cost of a bus is far less of an impact that the replacement cost of a train car
5) There is little involved to rerouting a bus as opposed to a train.
6) Travel is never consistent. You have peaks and valleys on demand. A bus route can be adjusted to compensate, or you can send multiple buses to alleviate the strain of demand during peak hours. You cannot do that with buses.

Walt Disney World is a perfect case study for the argument against a train. Disney did the study on whether or not they should build a monorail or add new bus routes to their newer resorts.

They calculated the cost of construction and the capacity of the monorails versus the use of more buses. In the end, for the some $20 million per mile of monorail track they found buses were better suited to meet the needs of varying demand for transportation. They could easily route more buses to handle the demand when parks opened or closed, but could only put so many monorails on a track. Special events could be catered too more easily.

Finally, maintenance cost of the track required additional funding where they had already allocated funds for road maintenance, and if they had to build more roads, it wasn't going to cost near $20 million per mile. A bus proved far more effective at meeting the varying needs of travel in the microcosm of Disney.

In the end, with an eye on costs verus effectiveness, Disney chose the bus.

Any flaming idiot would. Unless you have consistent demand and can handle varying capacity on a given route, a bus is superior. It utimately serves the tax payer better than a train in our evironment, which is not truly urban but a hybrid of both urban and suburban areas extending from PBC through Dade.

Finally, my first reaction:

Yep, I wanna give up my Lexus to ride with the vermin of the world.

Let me take my lovely family and sit among people from nations where personal hygeine is a dark mystery associated with the like of the full moon and witch-craft. Oh sorry, did I say other nation? I meant Hialeah.

Let's have a "chat" with the hip-hoppers who can't say 3 words straight without an F-Bomb, or the others who can't say 3 words in English.

Even better, I want to give up the luxury of personal transportation in order to roll in the filth left by the previous passengers. Gum stuck in chairs, overflowing toilets (if they even bothered to enter) and the associated residue of society all stuck to my seat, and now my pants all at one time.

Snob? Perhaps...Dude, I'll simply say it's not technology that kills public transporation. It's the public.

American's golden days passed when manners and social grace were put aside in favor of personal gratification and the current selfish, boorish behavior that seems to be a norm among so many.

So yeah, raise our taxes even higher and strangle our economy to death. Chase out and destroy the middle class and build the train. We'll have extremely wealthy and those so poor they are tax exempt. At least the latter will have a train. All they need is a reason to use it. What are the chances that will be for work?

Bob in Boca wrote:

Bus routes are superior in many ways to a train. Why?
1) Because we already have roads all over the place.
2) Bus routes can be altered, a train track cannot. 3) Buses are more easily converted to utilizes existing "green" technologies.
4) Replacement cost of a bus is far less of an impact that the replacement cost of a train car
5) There is little involved to rerouting a bus as opposed to a train.
6) Travel is never consistent. You have peaks and valleys on demand. A bus route can be adjusted to compensate, or you can send multiple buses to alleviate the strain of demand during peak hours. You cannot do that with buses.
Walt Disney World is a perfect case study for the argument against a train. Disney did the study on whether or not they should build a monorail or add new bus routes to their newer resorts.
They calculated the cost of construction and the capacity of the monorails versus the use of more buses. In the end, for the some $20 million per mile of monorail track they found buses were better suited to meet the needs of varying demand for transportation. They could easily route more buses to handle the demand when parks opened or closed, but could only put so many monorails on a track. Special events could be catered too more easily.
Finally, maintenance cost of the track required additional funding where they had already allocated funds for road maintenance, and if they had to build more roads, it wasn't going to cost near $20 million per mile. A bus proved far more effective at meeting the varying needs of travel in the microcosm of Disney.
In the end, with an eye on costs verus effectiveness, Disney chose the bus.
Any flaming idiot would. Unless you have consistent demand and can handle varying capacity on a given route, a bus is superior. It utimately serves the tax payer better than a train in our evironment, which is not truly urban but a hybrid of both urban and suburban areas extending from PBC through Dade.
Finally, my first reaction:
Yep, I wanna give up my Lexus to ride with the vermin of the world.
Let me take my lovely family and sit among people from nations where personal hygeine is a dark mystery associated with the like of the full moon and witch-craft. Oh sorry, did I say other nation? I meant Hialeah.
Let's have a "chat" with the hip-hoppers who can't say 3 words straight without an F-Bomb, or the others who can't say 3 words in English.
Even better, I want to give up the luxury of personal transportation in order to roll in the filth left by the previous passengers. Gum stuck in chairs, overflowing toilets (if they even bothered to enter) and the associated residue of society all stuck to my seat, and now my pants all at one time.
Snob? Perhaps...Dude, I'll simply say it's not technology that kills public transporation. It's the public.
American's golden days passed when manners and social grace were put aside in favor of personal gratification and the current selfish, boorish behavior that seems to be a norm among so many.
So yeah, raise our taxes even higher and strangle our economy to death. Chase out and destroy the middle class and build the train. We'll have extremely wealthy and those so poor they are tax exempt. At least the latter will have a train. All they need is a reason to use it. What are the chances that will be for work?

with a cost of six billion dollars it is just too expensive to even consider. Buses would be cheaper but are still too expensive and increase traffic congestion too much. The current bus system would need to charge over $10 per ride to break even. Public mass transportation need to be eliminated. If it made economical sense, you would see commercial buses filling routes that people really needed.

Yes, I am for 1% tax hike if it gets this project moving.

forget the ignorance of Mr. Lexus. I enjoyed taking the train in Boston more than I ever did sitting in my new Mercedes. There is no comparison.

There are now more data to demonstate that the most desireable places to live (and for good companies to set up offices) are those with good walking and arts communities. I saw this happen in Boston: put a train stop in some blighted or even middle class area and you have a renaissance.

This is a no-brainer and will transform this area in to one which can truly compete with Manhattan, San Francisco, Chicago, and Boston for the managers who bring well-paying jobs down here.

We need to get off of the plantation mentality that if taxes go up, jobs go out. that may be true for a Tyson chicken processing plant, but if you want Fidelity to open up in our area, quality of life has to improve. Oh yes, jobs at Fidelity are pretty good, even for the unskilled workers.

I'd love to see the region have more transit options, but if it is going to be run like tri-rail then I'd say what's the point? Like we need another massive failure. An always late, NEVER on time, mess that doesn't even operate 24/7! What a joke. In South Florida we need to look to the older grown up big cities and see how they do things. We need real transit solutions, not more half hearted stupidity that does nothing to help our transit problems. It's time for South Florida to get serious in a big way about mass transit. We've become a major metropolitan area, it's time to act like it.

a believer wrote:

Yes, I am for 1% tax hike if it gets this project moving.
forget the ignorance of Mr. Lexus. I enjoyed taking the train in Boston more than I ever did sitting in my new Mercedes. There is no comparison.
There are now more data to demonstate that the most desireable places to live (and for good companies to set up offices) are those with good walking and arts communities. I saw this happen in Boston: put a train stop in some blighted or even middle class area and you have a renaissance.
This is a no-brainer and will transform this area in to one which can truly compete with Manhattan, San Francisco, Chicago, and Boston for the managers who bring well-paying jobs down here.
We need to get off of the plantation mentality that if taxes go up, jobs go out. that may be true for a Tyson chicken processing plant, but if you want Fidelity to open up in our area, quality of life has to improve. Oh yes, jobs at Fidelity are pretty good, even for the unskilled workers.

Mass transportation does nothing but spread the neighborhood blight. Buses don't help anyone.In new york whenever they have a bus strike and the buses aren't running, traffic runs a lot better. The congestion returns as soon as the strike is over. The cost to taxpayer to run these systems is unreasonable and if they charged riders enough to to pay for the whole cost, no one would ride.

I have to agree that buses are the only real option for commuters but for everyday life, it'll be a hard sell. After a year in London and its mass transit service I can say this;
1 buses CAN be nice comfortable means of getting around, drunks tend to prefer the trains and the homeless can't afford the tickets
2 the service CAN tick you off at times, you wait 20 min for the number 74 then TWO arrive one behind the other!!
3 making mass transit cheap and useful will not get people out of their cars but making commuting by car an impossible nightmare will
As long as gas is cheap and a commute is less than an hour, the public transport of choice will be the car.
I didn't dislike London Transit, quite the opposite. Was nice to sit back and read the paper or listen to music. The vast majority of riders were professionals.

It is unbelievable that this system is not available already. With gas being so expensive, why not have this wonderful idea come to pass! We're so far behind Europe! I've traveled throughout Europe and was amazed how effective the rail system is. Why don't we have a bullet train such as the one in Japan. I traveled in Japan and was jealous of such transportation. Bring the bullet train to Ft. Lauderdale, we need it!

"They roll through the nightlife districts of Hollywood, Fort Lauderdale and Delray Beach, where conversations at outdoor restaurants stop as the locomotives and boxcars rumble through."

They are bringing back locomotives? Really? South Florida doesnt have a operating steam locomotive since Hurricane Andrew took out the one at Gold Coast Museum. The writer Michael Turnbell should research when the last locomotive rolled through South Florida and then call it a Diesel Engine.

Yes, Yes, Yes

Paul wrote:

I have to agree that buses are the only real option for commuters but for everyday life, it'll be a hard sell. After a year in London and its mass transit service I can say this;
1 buses CAN be nice comfortable means of getting around, drunks tend to prefer the trains and the homeless can't afford the tickets
2 the service CAN tick you off at times, you wait 20 min for the number 74 then TWO arrive one behind the other!!
3 making mass transit cheap and useful will not get people out of their cars but making commuting by car an impossible nightmare will
As long as gas is cheap and a commute is less than an hour, the public transport of choice will be the car.
I didn't dislike London Transit, quite the opposite. Was nice to sit back and read the paper or listen to music. The vast majority of riders were professionals.

People, get to know more about London. No much for nothing but there in London what you pay as today for gas is like $9 USD per gallon! That will make you think about ride the mighty bus! Got that?

Where did the writers get the notion FEC Would sell their tracks to a commuter rail entity?

"Although city leaders along the route generally support the proposal, it faces formidable obstacles. It could cost as much as $6 billion to buy the right of way and build stations, bridges and additional tracks, requiring federal investment as well as local contributions."

Trains will not work as 'mass' transportation systems. At least not anymore than the supersonic 'Concord' did...or the 'Water Taxi' or the present 'TriRail'. Sure a very few people will enjoy trains...but mostly...thousands of cars will sit idling, burning gas at train crossings as these mostly-empty train cars roll by, slowly, carrying politicians mostly-empty self-serving dreams of rejuvenating 'old downtown' districts where mostly-nobody wants to go.
It would be cheaper to find out exactly who will use this train and buy/lease them all a 3-wheel electric commuter vehicle...a 3-wheeler so they can legally use the mostly-empty HOV Lanes on I-95.
What will they think of next?

The main reason Tri-Rail is not as popular as it could be is because in order to get anywhere once you exit the trains, it involves getting on 4 busses which don't exactly run on any particular schedule; and apparently crash if it's near the Ft. Laud. airport. Not to mention the trains don’t have the most reliable track record for keeping with their schedules.

bigmonstertruck wrote:

Did they forget that Tri-Rail isn't exactly a success? People do not want to deal with trains.

exile wrote:

I don't know. Tri-Rail struggles because it doesn't connect to anything and with a few exceptions (like downtown West Palm) isn't within walking distance of much. If you had trains that were more integrated with their communities, they'd get more riders.

What are you talking about....you can take Tri rail to miami...get off at the main station and take the inner loop or the outboaund loop ( metro rail and Metro Mover) to many places downtown and out laying, with bus shuttles to the malls, the zoo, etc...the outbound loop goes out to Coconut grove with stops right next to Vizcaya and the Science Museum...the farther down it stops at University of Miami with a shuttle that goes into the Grove and Coral Gables...the inner loop will take you to the
American Airlines Stadium, all of downtown, and the shuttle to the Cruise ships) If you stay on the Tri Rail you can go all the way to the Airport ( Miami) and take the short 5 min shuttle ( free) to the airport....Same for Fort Lauderdale airport...the stop is right there by the airport with the free shuttle into the airport...
No Tri rail is very useful ...I think Americans are just too lazy to walk a few feet!!