States that decline rail funding are missing out

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CHamilton

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High speed rail is the interstate highway system of the future

In 2011, Governor Walker ( R ) of Wisconsin, Governor Scott ( R ) of Florida, and Governor Kaisch ( R ) of Ohio rejected federal funds for high speed rail. High speed rail will be the economic engine of our country's future and by rejecting these funds these three Republican governors have in essence crippled their own states economic future. The decision to reject these funds was done as a short-sighted political action without regard to the needs of their individual states or the needs of the country as a whole.
Declining these funds has meant missed opportunities and missed job creation. It also means that plans for a national high speed rail system are on hold. Three governors with only a political agenda in mind have disrupted and crippled the future of American transportation.
In 1956 it would have been inconceivable that a governor would turn down federal funds for an infrastructure project. Today, it has happened not once but three times.
 
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I'd say that the article upon which you are basing your theory is misleading.

It proves that building superwide freeways for commuters did not solve our transportation needs (based on the picture shown). In fact, had the country invested in good commuter rail transportation, we might have been better off. So the picture has no meaning in regards to the intercity high speed rail being planned. A good, reliable, clean safe 80MPH commuter line is what is needed.

Similarly, spending zillions on a few superfast trains seems so wasteful to me. In a time when we see Amtrak trains running at 30MPH behind a freight or due to poorly maintained (for passenger service) freight tracks or sitting on sidings due to the lack of double/triple tracking, bottlenecks because of hundred year-old bridges and tunnels, slowness due to numerous crossings, lack of sidings for stations to clear a main line and failure to give passenger trains priority, a lot fewer zillions can be spent making trains capable of doing 90MPH actually go that speed and near future ones doing 120.

Closing small city airports and replacing them with regular train service to the bigger towns and, just as importantly, bigger airports, would halve the number of flights. In addition, additional and more convenient Auto-trains would make for an integrated intercity transportation plan.

I think people will be happier knowing they can get to more cities at 120MPH with slowdowns only due to hourly stops than they would be to far fewer cities at far higher cost to build the infrastructure so they can do it at 200MPH.
 
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You realize that a lot of of the "high speed rail" funds are for exactly the sort of incremental under-125mph improvements you're talking about, right?

The funds rejected by Wisconsin to extend the Hiawathas to Madison and rejected by Ohio to run Cincinnati-Dayton-Columbus-Cleveland trains were for conventional trains, not true HSR.

Illinois and Michigan are spending part of the money on 110mph service, but not 150 or 220 mph except for some (very) preliminary planning. California got money for true HSR, but 1) some for conventional projects too and 2) they have a well-developed corridor system already. For example, California, Illinois, Michigan, and Missouri collectively received federal funds for 130 new conventional bilevel corridor cars.
 
The opponents of rail service expansions in the 2010 elections showed no understanding at all of how various forms of transportation compliment each other. The Madison Hiawatha extension was called a "rip-off" as it was convention-yet-faster speed rail being labelled as HSR. No mention at all was made of the fact that the train would've stopped at MKE's airport and how folks in the Madison area could've boarded at their station, take the train to MKE, and then fly out. No understanding at all of how things fit together in a transportation network. I think that advocates need to do a better job of illustrating how trains serve as part of the overall network, as the opponents will only get more vocal and politicize rail service even more.
 
Voters in FL, OH and WI will soon see the benefits of improved passenger service in other states. Political ideology gets to be pretty expensive after a while in terms of lost opportunities for business growth and property delevopment. By comparison, MI has a conservative GOP governor who understands the value of improved passenger service. Ann Arbor is currently building a new station which has resulted in $100 million in related real estate developments. Similar growth is seen at other cities like Battle Creek, Kalamazoo, Jackson, Dearborn and Pontiac. There has also been similar growth in IL cities like Joliet, Bloomington/Normal and Springfield while the Lincoln Service between Chicago - St. Louis is upgraded to 110mph standards.
 
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I am not sure what to make of the Florida situation. The AAF Miami - Orlando project makes a heck of a lot more sense than the Orlando - Tampa project that Florida rejected. And fortunately that money got put to good use to upgrade the NEC in NJ. Having talked to many folks in Florida who apparently also vote, I get the sense that they in general neither know, nor understand or care about whatever was going on between Orlando and Tampa. Personally, even back then I thought it was a mighty odd project to fund for that kind of speed.

Meanwhile three major stations are in the process of getting constructed in Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, and a fourth one in Miami is coming on line. And Orlando just got a brand spanking new commuter rail service which is now going to be extended in Phase 2 and folks are already talking about extending it to Daytona in a later phase. Also the extension of TriRail along FEC is being apparently pursued actively. So lots happening and I am not sure too many other than the true believers will remember anything about the brief Orlando - Tampa project. Florida is not like Ohio, Indiana or Wisconsin in that respect.

While I like the fact that Lincoln Service is being developed, it also appears to be one of the more phenomenal boondogglish project in terms of what we are getting for the amount of money being spent on it over the incredible amount of time it is taking to get a few miles upto speed. I wish there was a more efficient way of achieving that both temporally and financially.
 
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I am not sure what to make of the Florida situation. The AAF Miami - Orlando project makes a heck of a lot more sense than the Orlando - Tampa project that Florida rejected.
....unless you're Tampa. Tampa got screwed by Governor Scott's rejection of the federal money. I hope that high speed Orlando-Tampa service gets revived soon, perhaps as an extension of the Miami-Orlando project. Frankly, direct Amtrak service to Tampa should be displaced by such a service, which would create substantial network efficiencies.
 
Eh, Tampa didn't miss out on much. The train didn't go into downtown Orlando, it went to the airport (so you'd get to Orlando and then have to rent a car or hire a taxi to go into town), and there was no clear plan to fund phase two (to Miami). A SunRail connection from there to downtown wasn't happening yet (though it might have ended up on the books by now with that, to be fair...but it's already getting a lot of traction).

I've called the train "Disney's Ghost" because without going to Miami or getting a good link downtown it was basically a massive people mover for Disney World. It's something Walt might have come up with...only without as much envisioned functionality as he tended to include in his ideas.
 
Eh, Tampa didn't miss out on much. The train didn't go into downtown Orlando, it went to the airport (so you'd get to Orlando and then have to rent a car or hire a taxi to go into town), and there was no clear plan to fund phase two (to Miami). A SunRail connection from there to downtown wasn't happening yet (though it might have ended up on the books by now with that, to be fair...but it's already getting a lot of traction).

I've called the train "Disney's Ghost" because without going to Miami or getting a good link downtown it was basically a massive people mover for Disney World. It's something Walt might have come up with...only without as much envisioned functionality as he tended to include in his ideas.
The above is why this system deserved to die. It was not the best use of the money. Beyond the current Disney management and those that want rail of any kind any where the concept was essentially unsupportable. Don't think Walt would like where his dream has gone.

A far better use of money would have been to speed up and improve capacity of the route of the Tampa-Miami Silver Palm putting on it some 4 to 6 trains per day between Tampa and Miami. Extending it to run around Tampa Bay like the old Seaboard Airl Line Florida trains would have been a good thing as well.
 
Well, and I think there's a reason that FEC waited until after the project blew up to step in...they didn't want to talk up their service only for a state/federal bullet train to get dropped in next to them and wipe out their business. I very much suspect that FEC had their eyes on this for a little while before they announced...they clearly didn't just jump in out of the blue.
 
There are lots of Tourists traveling from South Florida to Orlando and the All Aboard Florida projects makes lots of sense. For those of us Floridians who have sat in bumper to bumper traffic on I-4 between Tampa and Orlando wishing there was a high speed train as an alternative, we wish the funds had not been given away and we have an election coming up.. Using the existing early 20th century Amtrak route won't work. It needs to be a whole new 21st century alignment. Whether the train goes to downtown Orlando doesn't matter much, but it needs to go to the Orlando Airport where a new ground transportation hub is being developed. Lots of people have been to Orlando many times and have no idea where Downtown is. They go to the entertainment venues, the malls or the Airport. The same applies to Tampa.
 
....unless you're Tampa. Tampa got screwed by Governor Scott's rejection of the federal money. I hope that high speed Orlando-Tampa service gets revived soon, perhaps as an extension of the Miami-Orlando project. Frankly, direct Amtrak service to Tampa should be displaced by such a service, which would create substantial network efficiencies.
From my reading of the plans for thze Orlando airport station, it's planned as a dead end. It would probably have to be torn down and built from scratch if that line ever needed to be extended.
 
@cirdan

The Orlando airport station IS planned as a through station, but only for AAF and not SunRail. AAF is going to put their maintenance facility in the same place as proposed for the HSR project. They will use the same route to Tampa as the HSR project, more or less, if AAF ever expands to Tampa.

If AAF does expand to Tampa and Jacksonville, I think Amtrak will retrench further from Florida. I saw some traffic data for 2012? and fully 1/3 of the silver trains passengers were intra-Florida if I recall correctly.

Brian_Tampa
 
@cirdan

The Orlando airport station IS planned as a through station, but only for AAF and not SunRail. AAF is going to put their maintenance facility in the same place as proposed for the HSR project. They will use the same route to Tampa as the HSR project, more or less, if AAF ever expands to Tampa.
Thanks for that clarification. It makes more sense now.

If AAF does expand to Tampa and Jacksonville, I think Amtrak will retrench further from Florida. I saw some traffic data for 2012? and fully 1/3 of the silver trains passengers were intra-Florida if I recall correctly.

Brian_Tampa
I see what you're getting at but just wish you were wrong. Without Florida, the Silver Service wouldn't be able to survive. If AAF kills off the Silver Service, that would be a very tragic unintended consequence.

Maybe those intra Florida passengers are mostly short-haul and low revenue so in the bigger picture, the financial impact on Amtrak wouldn't be so great.
 
I don't think Amtrak will retrench New York - Miami service. It might retrench Tampa though, if there is high speed connecting service available from Orlando to Tamp that is easy to connect to from Amtrak.

BTW, the recent decision by the STB regarding lack of jurisdiction over NJT opens the door for allowing connecting service between Amtrak and AAF without running afoul of STB ruling of non-jurisdiction over AAF. STB ruled that it has no jurisdiction over NJT even though NJT passengers may connect to Amtrak.In reality Amtrak even issues NJT tickets without running afoul of this, and Amtrak uses NJT as a Thruway service from PHL to ACY and points in between.
 
If AAF does expand to Tampa and Jacksonville, I think Amtrak will retrench further from Florida. I saw some traffic data for 2012? and fully 1/3 of the silver trains passengers were intra-Florida if I recall correctly.

Brian_Tampa
I see what you're getting at but just wish you were wrong. Without Florida, the Silver Service wouldn't be able to survive. If AAF kills off the Silver Service, that would be a very tragic unintended consequence.

Maybe those intra Florida passengers are mostly short-haul and low revenue so in the bigger picture, the financial impact on Amtrak wouldn't be so great.
It means all those seats taken up by low-fare paying Floridians can now be sold to high-fare paying New Yorkers. Amtrak will probably come out ahead on the deal.
 
Intra-Florida traffic is ≥23% of the combined Silver Service ridership. That's a major financial hit to take and I doubt you'd get high-fare paying New Yorkers to replace them: When the Silver Palm ran, with all its extra capacity, all it did was cannibalize ridership from the others.
 
I don't think Amtrak will retrench New York - Miami service. It might retrench Tampa though, if there is high speed connecting service available from Orlando to Tamp that is easy to connect to from Amtrak.
Only if Amtrak and AAF actually serve the same station in Orlando. Right now that doesn't seem to be what they're planning. If you've got to transfer between two locations, that's going to dissuade a whole bunch of potential riders.
 
Intra-Florida traffic is ≥23% of the combined Silver Service ridership. That's a major financial hit to take and I doubt you'd get high-fare paying New Yorkers to replace them: When the Silver Palm ran, with all its extra capacity, all it did was cannibalize ridership from the others.
23% of riders, but what percentage of revenues?
 
I don't think Amtrak will retrench New York - Miami service. It might retrench Tampa though, if there is high speed connecting service available from Orlando to Tamp that is easy to connect to from Amtrak.
Only if Amtrak and AAF actually serve the same station in Orlando. Right now that doesn't seem to be what they're planning. If you've got to transfer between two locations, that's going to dissuade a whole bunch of potential riders.
As I said, only if the connection is convenient, which according the current plans it will not be. So I would not foresee Amtrak getting out of Tampa either, unless things change to meet that critical requirement.
 
Intra-Florida traffic is ≥23% of the combined Silver Service ridership. That's a major financial hit to take and I doubt you'd get high-fare paying New Yorkers to replace them: When the Silver Palm ran, with all its extra capacity, all it did was cannibalize ridership from the others.
23% of riders, but what percentage of revenues?
Don't have the breakdown for that, but probably 15-20% I'd suspect.
 
One of the reasons Amtrak intrastate business has dropped is curtailment of service by Amtrak. When I moved to Jacksonville in 9/2003, there were 6 daily trains plus the tri-weekly Sunset Limited. There were 3 good choices to Miami and vv, 2 or 3 to Orlando and vv. The schedulesecond were more dependable. Now Jacksonville has 4 trains daily.Southbound they are scheduled close together so there is really 1 choice. You can't plan anything at your destination because who knows what time you might arrive. Amtrak has already almost abandoned Tampa. If the Star is running late, Tampa passengers are put on a connecting bus to or from the Star. I have personally had this happen often. Most Florida's consider Amtrak intra state service ajoke. It's much more dependable to get in your car and drive. Even with heavy traffic you have a better chance keeping your commitments.
 
In general Amtrak LD trains should ideally augment existing local intra-state service. It is unreasonable to expect Amtrak to be the primary provider of intra-state service. It generally does not do so even in the northeast on the NEC.
 
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