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California will have a surplus this year. Look it up. Rick Scott is a complete idiot, and is a total disaster as Governor of the 4th largest State in the country. And AAF is not HSR. It will be faster than Amtrak at about 90 mph and will be successful, but don't kid yourself into thinking this is privately funded HSR. It most certainly is not. It is higher speed rail than we are used to. |
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125 mph is faster than HSR trains from Chicago to St. Louis, and from Chicago to Detroit. 125 mph is faster than the original Tokyo to Osaka "Bullet" trains, which I believe most would consider the original HSR train. :) 125 mph Orlando to Coco Beach, a distance of ~40 miles 110 mph from Coco Beach to West Palm Beach, a distance of ~124 miles 79 mph West Palm Beach to North Miami, a distance of ~54 miles. 60 mph from North Miami to downtown Miami, a distance of ~11 miles. Over 2/3rds of the entire route is proposed to be faster than Class 4 tracks will allow. |
^Acela goes 150mph in Rhode Island.
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or Germany or France or Japan or Spain or London England... |
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I believe AAF is a more logical step for Florida (operational-wise) than the dead HSR project that would have connected Tampa and Orlando. Nevertheless, Rick Scott screwed this state over big time by rejecting that HSR money. It was a demonstration project being funded by the feds and private companies were willing to operate it on their own dime for the first 30 years. Opportunities like that don't happen every day. Even if it fails after 30 years, that's infrastructure not paid for locally that could have been used for freight and conventional passenger rail movement.
No money was saved on Florida's end, since we can't get the cash back for all the studies. If any thing, we subsidized FECI's decision (all the HSR studies we paid for) to create AAF, which is essentially covers the path of the dead HSR project's phase 2. |
Having DT Tampa, Ybor and the cruise terminals directly tied to Disney, OCCC/Seaworld and OIA with a 35-45 minute ride would have been transformative. Especially since the Tampa end was the end with lots of land to develop near the station. Add a station at the Hard Rock Casino (which gets 20,000+ weekday visitors, many of them tourists who drive from Orlando), and ridership would have been plenty.
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^He's not stupid, he's a self serving asshole.
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HypotheticAlly speaking, if the Feds resurrected (miracle?) their funding offer to Florida for the original plan, and say Charlie Crist got the governorship back, is the original plan still doable now with FEC in the picture?
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Yes, absolutely.
But at the federal level, the Republican HoR would still be a stumbling block. Depending on how it shakes out after 2014, I think a Rep senate filibuster could be broken though. It's also important to note that Rick Scott has been laying the ground work to fill in the HSR right of way along I-4 with for-profit corporate toll lanes. If reelected, it'll be all but a sure thing. |
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For example, to make their project a reality, AAF had to agree to pay the Orlando Orange County Expressway Authority millions. Since the Beach Line is a toll road, they were fearful that a successful train would mean less automobile traffic. Without AAF agreeing to subsidize their desired profits, they would have refused to lease ROW for the rail line's extension from the coast to Orlando. |
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Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sacrament...-load-132.html |
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also connects to the new Ft laud Wave Train but what does CA & Arnold The Terminator have to do with rick scott ?? |
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AAF would need local and state assistance to assemble the right-of-way between the airport and the I-4 median, but it's not inconceivable. |
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Good riddance to Rick Scott!!! Get him out of the office now! |
Per the Orlando Business Journal:
Here’s what you can look out for in 2014 with regards to All Aboard Florida: • The next series of public meetings will take place to get public input on an environmental impact study being done by third-party consultant Vanasse Hangen Brustlin Inc. The first series of meetings was held last spring. See details on that study process here. http://www.allaboardflorida.com/wp-c...reen-FINAL.pdf • Once the Federal Railroad Administration receives the study and the public input from the meetings, it can sign off on the project and construction can begin from West Palm Beach to Orlando. • Infrastructure on the rail project will start, generating temporary 6,600 construction jobs and $400 million worth of construction work will take place in Central Florida. • Construction to start on the 80-acre vehicle maintenance facility near the Orlando airport, where 80 permanent jobs will be created to manage eight of the rail system’s 10 rail cars. • A contractor being named to handle the manufacturing of the passenger train cars, known as rolling stock. |
Interesting. AAF and FEC's parent company just acquired downtown Jacksonville's largest hotel for $53 million. Gotta love the name.....Jacksonville Hotel 2014 Purchaser LLC....
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It's been long rumored that the service would be extended to Jax, assuming the Miami/Orlando line ends up as a success. This acquisition is probably totally unrelated with bringing passenger rail back to the old downtown terminal but this hotel is the key to getting the convention center out of the old train station, adjacent to FEC's tracks through downtown. The Hyatt property has first dibs on the old courthouse site across the street. The old courthouse and its parking lot, are the long rumored site for a new downtown convention center. |
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