WAJAS

It doesn't appear anyone else was pushing to expand the park, and I personally appreciate these women have taken the initiative to generate the funds. I don't think this is the last property to come under the ownership of the trust.

DDI's require additional ROW to bulge out near the intersections. This positions the lanes at an angle, which is important for drivers to understand where they will be continuing for the green light. The applications in Florida also tend to include turn lanes, but many applications do not. I would expect the high traffic Colonial interchange would require the turn lanes to be kept. Your second point is very true, and honestly something I should have mentioned before. The SPUI requires larger bridges, but that isn't what's typically referred to when speaking in additional ROW requirements. That being because those bridges are just changes to the current ROW of the highway, so no new land needs to be acquired and it does not impact business access.

This is fine at large suburban intersections that are never going to be pedestrian friendly unless a bridge is built. However, they require a ton of additional ROW, which means they won't work in any kind of space constrained (urban) environment.

They do decrease points of conflict, which theoretically decreases the chance of a collision. The theory has mirrored application as well. They also allow only two-phase signaling, which decreases the time your waiting at the intersection. Ultimately, they work well when they are applied to interchanges that fit the design criteria. Roundabouts don't work at every intersection, and neither do diverging diamonds work at every interchange. A good example is downtown at Colonial, urban environment, necessary capacity, and lack of additional ROW means that a diverging diamond is not appropriate, so a SPUI (Single Point Urban Interchange) is used instead. A good traffic engineer should be able to determine the best tool for each location based on the typical design criteria, but that unfortunately is based on numbers that can drastically change over the course of a few decades. That's why reconstruction of roadways occurs.

Well a large portion of that funding never actually made it to the projects after 2010 due to the change in legislature. Then, Trump's admin cancelled the remaining billion dollars that California was allotted. The northeast corridor funding has allowed trains to travel faster over there. It also indirectly resulted in the improvement of rail infrastructure in many corridors through the "projects laying the foundation for high-speed passenger rail" category, which improved rails in California, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and a few others I can't recall. I also don't think its a coincidence that all of these private projects came up after the government started pursuing it. The increased investment prompted the interest of the private companies. But that is all beside the point. I don't understand your position. You originally stated the following. This says that Biden is bad for Florida because we would rather have high-speed rail. I then show you where Biden has supported high-speed rail. You also point out that you prefer the privately run system, and Biden has made no indication that he is against or would impede private passenger rail. I don't see how this is bad for Florida per your points. At the very least, it is neutral is Floridians truly don't care about Amtrak, which is a pretty significant assumption.

Biden at least has shown to not be pro-Amtrak at the expense of innovation. He is one of the main reasons why Acela exists and was a proponent of the high-speed rail initiative under Obama. Pete has less of a history to dissect in this area though.

There's been a lot of discussion on this throughout the subforum. I'm interested in what the actually consensus is, and if there even is a consensus.

It's a great idea that needs to be regulated. The city can't blame the companies for taking advantage of them. That is literally what companies do. They said they would put up a fence. Was that a requirement? Is it being enforced?

I'm surprised to have learned that one of the properties that @spenser1058 mentioned is owned by Craig Ustler of Creative Village, Urban Rethink, Thornton Park Central, etc. The middle lot is owned by the law firm itself. Another is owned by a local family, and the last is owned by the Eola Inn's owners. This is all from the Orange County InfoMap.

That's the situation with the Orlando Land Trust has negotiated with the owners of the 7-eleven. I think a decent amount of property in the area is still owned by Orlando natives, and it wouldn't be too far fetched to think that the owners of some of the other lots around Lake Eola would offer below market price. This is where I'd go next as well. Expanding into downtown would require a lot of cooperation that I doubt would really work out. I like this idea though. The fact most of that block isn't developed makes this not completely out of the question. I'd rather they just do a large crosswalk with a light than the bridge. It's more likely to occur and, if done properly, will get similar results.

It looks like their next goal might be the Fifth Third Bank building as they've aid that they want to secure the four corners of the park. After this first project, the only other corner not in the park is that building. While I think purchasing the building is a bit out of the question, I think they could definitely work with the owners to purchase the parking lots. I'm sure they could find permanent parking in one of the 7 parking garages within two blocks of the building. Here's a question. What properties would you all attempt to purchase for the park? Where should the park expand first?

I think Jacksonville is about as far as high-speed rail makes sense. I wouldn't take it from Miami to Atlanta, which would likely be the next big destination after Jacksonville. However, Orlando to Atlanta through Jacksonville might make sense depending on the speeds of the line in Georgia. Orlando is evidently going to become the hub for the area tho, so if I did go Miami to Atlanta it would probably stop in Orlando.

Oh, so for like transfers. That's interesting. Depending on the frequency of trains, it might be just as fast to transfer in Orlando. If the the train you'd be transferring in either scenario are actually the same train, then the only difference would be the length of the layover and location. They might want to consolidate transfers in Orlando though because its large size and amenities means people wouldn't mind waiting there. However, it would add about an hour to the trip, which means it might barely edge out traveling by car.

Why would it?

It would definitely follow the tracks currently being built to the coast, then use the FEC tracks to Downtown Jacksonville near the convention center and transit center. I don't see a Downtown Orlando station in the future to be honest.

I'd appreciate it going up to Jacksonville, but that won't happen till 2030 at the earliest.

You're missing the significance of the GSA. They're determination of the "apparent winner" is meant to be done early and before official results. It may not be the true answer to who won the election, but that is not the point. It means that the Biden Transition Team can begin preparing for the transition of power if it comes. This is important to begin early to ensure a smooth transition of power. I can find a better source if you'd like, but Wikipedia does give a good laymans interpretation of the law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_transition. Some of the resources it opens up are: office space, computers, 9.9 million USD to begin hiring and support, national security intelligence, and liaison's to each government agency. The 9/11 commission attributed part of what went wrong to the slow pace of the Bush admin in getting the national security team in place, which was due, in part, to the late apparent result. That is what hand recounts are for. What specifically are you referring to for Dominion? I have not been able to find a substantive claim against that their systems impacted the election in any way. Texas and some other states chose not to certify them, but this was not due to a security issue. Dominion's systems don't assign a unique identifying number for each vote, which Texas requires. The United States certification requirements don't include this, and many other states don't include this due to voter privacy concerns. It is not impossible, but it is improbably. Until someone brings forward some evidence of the the machines being hacked or security concerns for Dominion, then it is naive to consider it occurred.

Is the Robinson complete streets upgrade happening anytime soon? I believe that had some much better dedicated bike lanes.

I'm pretty sure Sunrail is already contributing to urban growth. Most stations have had some sort of TOD since Sunrail.

Well the station is elevated in Miami and OIA as well, but only at the station. Even if it was elevated, that doesn't really change the problem. The route would require it to double-back to get to Disney Springs with or without elevated tracks. That is unless the route changes significantly from the previous proposal.

It's going to require some sharp turns in that area. Sadly, this means that any express train not stopping at Disney will have to slow down significantly, which will increase the travel time. On the bright side, the location is much more convenient. Also, if the plan with Sunrail goes through, then this development is actually amazing. It means Sunrail will directly connect to Disney Springs and Disney World in general.

This sounds amazing! Sadly, the lack of a price to access and the high operating costs for upkeeping and powering the sings means that is unlikely.

Some updates on the Lynx's current projects from the past two years that I don't recall being mentioned. At the very least, this will serve as a summary of their current projects. The next year will be interesting as the Lynx Vision 2040 and the MetroPlan Orlando 2045 Metropolitan Transportation Plan will be finished in Fall 2021 and Spring 2021 respectively. SR 436 Transit Corridor The SR 436 Transit Corridor Study has been completed as of January 2019. The short-term recommendation was for a FastLink service between OIA and the Altamonte Sunrail Station, which has been implemented as Fastlink 436. The long-term recommendations included a BRT service following the route shown in the figure below. EDIT: Fastlink 436 has not been implemented. SR 50 Bus Rapid Transit The SR 50 Bus Rapid Transit Station Area Analysis Final Report has been completed as of June 14, 2019. This an extension of the SR50/UCF Connector Alternatives Analysis that was initiated in 2013. This report extends the locally preferred alternative from the previous study to the UCF campus in light of the new UCF Downtown campus's opening. The current alignment and station locations are shown in the figure below. The report itself gives very detailed information on the environment around each station, recommended changes to the environment, and exact locations of the BRT stations.

While I generally dislike one-way roads because they aren't pedestrian friendly. This makes sense. South St isn't and has not in recent memory been used by pedestrians at all. Before I-4 Ultimate, the exit there made it unfriendly anyways. The movement for exiting and entering the express lanes also appears to be pretty smooth and easy to access in this configuration.

This is probably a simplistic view, but I think this whole situation is a bit ridiculous. All the local partners and FDOT claim that they can't build Phase 2 North because of lack of federal funds. Then, they get the federal funds. Then, they begin worrying about whether its even worth the cost to the local partners. It's not like the cost and ridership projections were unknown when they submitted the federal grant application. The past few years would have been better spent figuring out how the local partners will actually pay for Sunrail once its their responsibility and developing Phase 3.