05-14-2010, 02:18 PM
You fellas who live up north where there was a thiving commuter rail business at one time, and have large cities with suburbs fanning out around them have a different situation. I can understand your position on re-establishing rail service. But down here in Florida, where the only real rail service for practically a hundred years has been down the east coast (due to Flagler, et. al.) and people are not conditioned to use rail travel. Especially not over here on the west coast of Florida. The closest steel rails to where I live are from Ft. Myers up to Punta Gorda or Port Charlotte, possible as far north as Sarasota, maybe 45 or 50 miles, where a Mystery/Dinner train runs on the weekends. Yeah ... we have bus service in Ft. Myers, but it operates at a loss each year due to lack of ridership because no one wants to wait on an uncovered bench in the hot sun (because the bus you wanted was early due to not having to stop to pick anyone up and was 250 yds. past your stop when you got to the bus stop) and the next bus doesn't come for 2 hours or more.
Amtrak hits Orlando and cuts sharply east and down the coast to Miami. They have commuter service in Miami with those Bombardier double-deck push-pull cars that run at a major loss every year. That means that we over here on the west coast are helping to subsidize the line with our taxes but get no benefit from it whatsoever.
Someone a couple of posts above this one commented that tourists would drive from Orlando to Tampa and take an alternate route back north. RIGHT ON! That's what happens thousands of times a week. The distance is such that no one who lives in Orlando works in Tampa and the reverse is also true. So residents wouldn't use the high speed rail line either. Yes, some jobs would be created for the amount of time it would take to build such a piece of infrastructure, but those jobs would go to companies from up north whose workers would come down here for the length of the build and return to their homes up north when it was completed. There are no companies down here with backgrounds in railroad building. Not many carpenters are needed to lay rail. Some jobs would be created to operate the rail line, but not really enough jobs to make a big enough difference.
There was a petition against the bill to build, but the Liberal House up in Tallahase saw Federal money to spend and passed the bill anyway. So if you think about where the Fed gets its money, you guys would be paying for this rail line down here, too.
And it will be a burden to the taxpayers of Florida for decades to come!
bil
Amtrak hits Orlando and cuts sharply east and down the coast to Miami. They have commuter service in Miami with those Bombardier double-deck push-pull cars that run at a major loss every year. That means that we over here on the west coast are helping to subsidize the line with our taxes but get no benefit from it whatsoever.
Someone a couple of posts above this one commented that tourists would drive from Orlando to Tampa and take an alternate route back north. RIGHT ON! That's what happens thousands of times a week. The distance is such that no one who lives in Orlando works in Tampa and the reverse is also true. So residents wouldn't use the high speed rail line either. Yes, some jobs would be created for the amount of time it would take to build such a piece of infrastructure, but those jobs would go to companies from up north whose workers would come down here for the length of the build and return to their homes up north when it was completed. There are no companies down here with backgrounds in railroad building. Not many carpenters are needed to lay rail. Some jobs would be created to operate the rail line, but not really enough jobs to make a big enough difference.
There was a petition against the bill to build, but the Liberal House up in Tallahase saw Federal money to spend and passed the bill anyway. So if you think about where the Fed gets its money, you guys would be paying for this rail line down here, too.
And it will be a burden to the taxpayers of Florida for decades to come!
bil
biL
Lehigh Susquehanna & WesternÂ
"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." ~~Abraham Lincoln
Lehigh Susquehanna & WesternÂ
"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." ~~Abraham Lincoln