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Governor: No state money for All Aboard Florida
BRADEN KAYGANICH,
Good point, but this is about state money not a FRA loan… which while a subsidy is not a grant and would have to be paid back, just as freight railroads do now with the FRA loan program in question.
Now the Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority did purchase additional land to increase its ROW to accommodate the new FEC tracks to Orlando, that I think can be seen as a public subsidy, I don’t know what if anything the FEC will be paying for this action by the expressway authority.
Still, overall this is a privately led and for-profit passenger rail venture that if successful will cost the overall taxpayer little.
“All Aboard Florida has applied for a $1.5 billion Federal Railroad Administration loan”
Does the FRA generate it’s own revenue? No, so yes this is public money. Any loan that alphabet agencies gives out is public money???
Correct, railroad crossings are the responsibility of the community not the railroad, he’s right. As far as people complaining about noise and traffic, TOUGH!! Move somewhere else, the R. O. W has been there a LONG TIME.
“There will be no state subsidies for this project.” Translation: There is no public “skin in the game” for this project through which to pressure your elected officials to pressure the railroad to influence their decision. Leave your elected officials alone and shut up, already.
The $1.5 billion FRA loan is just that…a FRA backed loan program to be repaid by All Aboard Florida. You make it seem as if it is a grant.
Always amazed at the resistance passenger rail receives on so many levels.
If it was “Fly Above Florida” and new airports…the governor would be doing back flips to support the cause.
A Federal Loan is not a private bank loan, it is given from money stolen from me through taxes, to hand out to folks who a private bank wont lend to. Its chrony capitalism at its finest.
It is interesting how Gov Scott put his support behind Sunrail commuter rail for Orlando. Can’t speak to the political connections but I’m utterly amazed that he turns down high speed rail funds on pure idealogical grounds, then turns around to support Sunrail and then this nonsense. In the meantime, Florida is putting a lot of money into ports which equates to a lot more trucks on the roads for those folks who can’t see beyond the pavement they drive on.
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Which I can’t speak California considering that we need to figure out how to get folks like myself out of the car. The freeway near my home is already 5 lanes in each direction, full at rush hour and no more space to add more lanes. BART would be great if I actually worked in San Francisco but I don’t
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We have to start getting smarter because you simple can’t build ourselves more lanes.
Your right on the money, Jim. Too many idiots equate passenger trains to the four letter word.
When a project is “PRIVATE” and a study is done, it typically has to “prove the market in the demographic it operates” I have been involved in these studies. Doing this “usually” insures that it can and WILL make some money. Private ventures are in business to make MONEY, and they tend to waste a lot less than the Govt. Its really a good sign that a private industry wants to do passenger service, because most all private railroads RUN away, FAST from passenger service. There must be a really good indication theres a market here. That drive to Miami is a pain, I would ride it… I wish them well…
Mathew Nichols:
I suggest you do some homework. Any loans to AAF have not been stolen from you. We all are paying less taxes than we should be given what we expect the Federal Gov’t to do. What you do not understand is that our gov’t can print money. It has been doing that under the Q E programs by which it has been buying billions of dollars of bonds to keep interest rates low to stimulate the economy. An economy that went into the tank thanks to uninformed people, ideologies?, under George Bush in the housing - subprime bubble of 2008. You are not being robbed. The Congress passed our tax laws which makes them leagal. Now, what planet do you live on? Get real will you.
The oppenents’ claim of traffic backups borders on ludicris. A short passenger train travelling at 70mph takes, what, 11 seconds to get through a crossing?
FWIW the message from the governor was more of an open letter to address specific concerns about yet another misleading newspaper article about the subject. It was not an attack on AAF.
Not a Scott fan, but he’s not doing anything wrong here. In fact, he’s helping clear up some misconceptions although his letter did imply that AAF is applying for a $1.5B FRA loan, which as I understand it is not true: AAF is considering applying for one, but has no application filed, and $1.5B is a little larger than they can actually apply for anyway.
Matthew Nichols is just another troll like the Goose.
My question is…with an intermodal center in the works, what are the plans for Orlando to run transportation from Orlando’s Airport to Disney World? With 16 roundtrips to the Airport from Miami(serving a portion of the East coast) I would think this would be a golden opportunity to give All Aboard Florida all the help it needs, and at the same time start thinking of fast transportation to Disney World if nothing else is already in the works. Maybe someone needs to talk to the Disney folks to see if they would be willing to go at least half way to pay for a monorail or fast maglev system to the Airport(I would think in the long run it would pay for itself and help in transporting local and out of town tourist to Disney’s resorts). Although the plans for Amtrak to put a consist on the Eastern Seaboard from Jax to Miami has been put on hold in Washington, it certainly could become a reality and at the same time cut down on the congestion on both I-4 and I-95.
My question is…with an intermodal center in the works, what are the plans for Orlando to run transportation from Orlando’s Airport to Disney World? With 16 roundtrips to the Airport from Miami(serving a portion of the East coast) I would think this would be a golden opportunity to give All Aboard Florida all the help it needs, and at the same time start thinking of fast transportation to Disney World if nothing else is already in the works. Maybe someone needs to talk to the Disney folks to see if they would be willing to go at least half way to pay for a monorail or fast maglev system to the Airport(I would think in the long run it would pay for itself and help in transporting local and out of town tourist to Disney’s resorts). Although the plans for Amtrak to put a consist on the Eastern Seaboard from Jax to Miami has been put on hold in Washington, it certainly could become a reality and at the same time cut down on the congestion on both I-4 and I-95.
@DONALD L LEMORE - Good question. There are proposals in the works:
- SunRail. This is expected to join the Orlando Airport IMC in the near future. The only thing in its way is if the current service turns out to be unsuccessful, but thus far, it’s been a stunning success, as you’ve probably read in the numerous stories posted on Trains.com about SunRail, which has certainly had more coverage than, say, NIMBYs attacking light rail proposals in the middle of nowhere… (cough I shouldn’t complain, at least they’re kinda sorta covering AAF now)
SunRail’s connection will be indirect, you’ll catch SunRail to take you to Osceola Parkway, which is the SunRail Disney station.
- There’s also a (private) maglev proposal in the works. It’s apparently further along than most maglev proposals which but I’ll still believe it only when I see it.
There’s some more stuff about it in this article: http://www.bizjournals.com/orlando/blog/2014/05/how-orlando-s-small-all-aboard-station-will-be-big.html
Eleven years ago, when high speed rail was proposed for Texas, the same arguments were used, traffic back up, noise, etc. The high speed rail was a triangle with Houston, San Antonio and Dallas/FT. Worth.
The “All Aboard Florida” story needs to be told outside of publications like Trains and away from news stories like the "Stuart News " or the slightly better Palm Beach Post.
@ DONALD L LEMORE: They did do a test run of Amtrak equipment over the FEC but the problem with Amtrak is a lack of funding for stations and equipment availability. Given the resistence to All Aboard Florida (a private venture) is receiving, I doubt the local communities would support a new Amtrak station. While new equipment is being purchased by Amtrak, it’s mainly replacing older Heritage Fleet equipment. From what was published (I think in Trains), a smaller number of additional cars were ordered for increased capacity on certain routes or spares during the winter. I don’t think Amtrak has the extra equipment lying around at the moment and I doubt they’d get additional funding (or even a FRA loan) to do so. The state of Florida is not going to subsidize rail service (once again, resistence to AAF), especially to Amtrak even if they were to work something out like the Amtrak California, Cascades service in the Pacific northwest, or the Downeaster (Maine) just to name a few services.
The interesting thing will be, if the equipment is available (or perhaps rerouting the Silver Star or Silver Meteor) would Amtrak run over the FEC and use the AAF stations.