Join the discussion on the following article:
Tri-Rail Airport Station set to open April 5
Join the discussion on the following article:
Tri-Rail Airport Station set to open April 5
Its a beautiful station, I’ve personally seen it, Its PATHETIC its taken 4 years though, back in day (1900-1940) they would build massive stations and miles upon miles of track in months. Today with technology and “advancement” of time, why the heck does everything take SO long to built?
@BRITT REID - Back then it was a railroad company and a local government that’d be involved.
Now it’s ten different organizations, funded by fifteen different Federal/State/Local agencies, requiring 2,983 committee votes, 7 changes in governor, 11 changes in mayor…
BTW The other big bit of Tri-Rail news is that they’re right now finding the final funding to get a station in downtown Miami, and it does look as if everyone’s willing to compromise a little to get it to happen. Still some votes left, but…
The station was only closed for four years?
We should consider that ‘back in the day’ the US population was much smaller than it is now and land was far less developed. Gov’t regulation and zoning has changed, for sure, but to say that huge stations and track complexes were constructed in months is revisionist. Large structures and track layouts took years to plan and construct, even in the ‘good old days’.
According to the story there are no fewer than 8 forms of mass transit using this facility too (when completed), including – it forgot to mention – airlines. Does shuttle to the airport count as #9? Oh! A tad more complex than the good old days when a train depot served trains and nothing else, eh?
I’ve always been an advocate of concentrating various forms of mass transit at hub locations. Afterall, when someone is already out of their car, the more destinations they can get to with the fewest transfers means they’re more likely to take the train (or other non-car transit) the whole way. I’d say the people mover to the airport counts as one form, since some of the people using it will use it to get to the airport because they work there, not just to catch a flight.
And the station can not be used by Amtrak because no body could figure out that there are streets that cross the rail line AT GRADE therefor positioning a normal Amtrack train consist at the station (stub end tracks) will block several cross streets. Guess now plan might be to build overpasses for cross streets but this will take years. Amazin’, just amazin’!