Naqiy90

Scooters are okay but i'm mad they got rid of the E-Bike which are much safer and actually provide exercise. I have friends who had never ridden bikes in years but loved riding the Lime Ebikes. Scooters are fun but I never feel safe on them personally.

I would be more wiling to blame citizens if the Mayoral election was held during Federal elections. Holding them in a year with no state or federal elections means turnout will be low and incumbents will almost always win. I'm tired of hearing Buddy's voice on the MCO APM too, believe me.

It's downtown Orlando, residents shouldn't have to park anywhere. We need to eliminate parking requirements!

Seems like another downtown park would be competing with Lake Eola, personally I want them to expand Lake Eola for more downtown green space, the paths in particular need to be widened, it is always super crowded! Trees are always great of course, we need shade trees everywhere!

Orlando Sentinel is officially leaving their downtown offices. Hopefully it expedites redevelopment of the parcel. Sad to see them go however!

The problem with LYYMO now is the route sucks for the Orange Line and is usually slower than walking and the Grapefruit line doesn't have dedicated lanes. Lime and North Quarter lines are even more useless. They need to consolidate and reconfigure the lines to actually service downtown effectively

I wish they would rezone Lake Eola Heights for more retail and apartments instead of offices so it became as vibrant as South Eola or Thorton, it is the most underutilized side of Lake Eola by far.

No opinions on the building itself but developing surface parking lots is always a win in my build. Hope to see the day Downtown has no Surface parking lots at all.

That 80K estimate probably includes the highly populated Brickell which is a quick and free Metromover trip away from the CBD, 40k is definitely an exaggeration for Orlando unless you include neighborhoods like College Park, Ivanhoe, SODO in addition to directly adjacent neighborhoods like Thorton & Paramore. The phrase Downtown is nebulous as this classic Seinfeld scene makes clear. Comparing specific neighborhoods is more precise imo but not as fun

Depends on your boundaries, Tampa's CBD has basically no residents but adjacent neighborhoods which could possibly be considered downtown like Chanelside, Hyde Park, Harbor island, ect, are dense populated and have relatively high populations. I used SocialExplorer.com, which gives pop. density and total pop. for each census tract to compare downtowns. Orlando's CBD actually has residents interspersed with office buildings, but no adjacent neighborhood as dense as Channelside or Harbor Island, but Orlando's downtown flows naturally to the connecting neighborhoods like Thorton Park unlike Tampa which has water and freeways separating the central business district from surround neighborhoods. Although with Tampa's free streetcar Ybor could be thrown in with Downtown which really tips the scale in Tampa's favor, and however Water Street turns out. Check out the website for yourself tho if interested, it uses Census data with the 2018 the most recent data.

In that time span approximately 8,000 people have died from cars in Florida. Also most of the deaths were ruled suicides which are still tragic, but most deaths involving automobiles are definitely not suicides. The new story states," "Psychologist Lanny Berman, who studies train suicides, said it’s likely the velocity of Brightline’s trains, their bright color and newness that attracts the suicidal. “It would be noticed that it has faster speeds and that it is more lethal,” said Berman, a former executive director of the American Association of Suicidology." So hopefully the amount of suicides decreases once the novelty of the train wears off.

Self-checkout lanes have such high rates of theft, something like 20% of items aren't scanned, that even at $15 it will make more economic sense to employ cashiers. Self checkout lanes are mostly used to accommodate peak hours so customers don't get satisfied at long waits. I used to work at Target and lines are supposed to be no more than 2 people behind the person checking out so we were overstaffed for busy hours but outside the peak the cashiers did menial busywork like organizing and restocking the items in the checkout lanes. With self checkout lanes they can staff accordingly but still emphasize cashiers to reduce shrinkage rates.

Reminds me Calatrava, too bad Orlando couldn't pay him to design it like the Oculus at Ground zero in NYC

True those are valid points, it's just a conspiracy theory of mine but I was 9 at the time so I don't know the full story. I just know Jeb! was anti-transit like most Republicans and Mel switched his vote suddenly I believe after Jeb! canceled the Florida Overland Express so I assumed there was a connection but I may have the dates wrong. I know the light rail would have used CSX ROW partially but not entirely on it like SunRail which definitely resulted in a larger check to CSX then the light rail would have. Regardless the light rail was a missed opportunity whatever your politics are considering it was Fully Funded and would have served the tourist areas which have unquestionable demand for greater transit options, the buses that serve the parks have the highest ridership and are always packed! I imagine light rail will eventually get built in the future but probably 30-40 years after it should have been built. At this point i'd rather try to build a comprehensive network of gold standard Bus Rapid Transit along the major corridors, but that would require taking lanes from cars for bus lanes which would likely inspire too much opposition, so I don't have faith for a much improved Orlando transit system any time soon.

https://ufdc.ufl.edu/UFE0024547/00001 Here's a Master thesis about the whole sad affair, there's a map of the planned project on page 60. my opinion is Jeb Bush was the ultimate cause of the light rail cancellation. At the same time, Jeb canceled true HSR Florida was developing under the ol He-Coon Lawton Chiles called the Florida Overland Express( FOX)that the state had already spent something like $40m on; probably told his boy Mel Martinez to flip his vote against Orlando's light rail too at the bidding of his Texas oil donors. Very Tragic how close Orlando was to having real rapid transit. It's insane that the most visited city in the country has a worse transit system than smaller cities with no tourists across the county. Las Vegas, Orlando's closest counterpart, might not have rail, but has frequent 24/7 bus service between the airport, the Strip, and Downtown. The fact that Orlando has no 24 hour bus service is real slap in the face to the low paid service workers the local economy is built on.

Wish something like this was getting built near Lake Underhill. I live in apartments next to Lake Underhill and love the area but wish there was restaurants and retail within walking distance .I ride my bike to the Milk district all the time but a local watering hole to watch the Magic would be nice. I know it's not zoned for commercial or mixed use but zoning is an infringement on freedom and should be abolished anyway.

Maybe half, but many students live near campus and take advantage of the extensive free shuttle service, even if they have cars, as too not deal with parking. Also many students park at Rosen and take the shuttle from there if they live on the west side to avoid paying expensive 408 tolls. UCF has the stereotype as a commuter college which is definitely true, but lots of students live on or near campus as well and have a more traditional college experience.

Parramore is plenty safe, I walk around there all the time to visit the West Art district and Stonewall. Displacing the current black residents and erasing its history would be a horrible loss for Orlando. I would like to see Parramore have increased development and investment, but not at the expense of the current residents. Any new developments should have affordable housing components set aside for current residents imo.

You're right there's only 45 units at St Regis, so there would be slightly more housing units but the affordability and charm of St Regis as the last Garden apartment in downtown would be a huge loss. I doubt this project will get built however, the condo market has not be great since the recession, there has been no condo's built downtown since then to my knowledge, just rentals.

My thoughts exactly, St Regis apartments are some of the last relatively affordable places downtown. Considering this project would be mostly hotel rooms, it seems it would be a net loss for housing units downtown

I think SunRail should be extended wherever cities want it as long as they're willing to put in the time, effort and money to make it happen. Commuter Rail Systems in places like Chicago, LA and NYC extend many miles outside what is considered the Metropolitan areas for those cities. More connectivity is never a bad thing. I don't think SunRail itself should dedicate resources towards expansion to Polk but if they want to spearhead expansion and put up matching local funds for the Feds by all means let it happen. Being able to commute to DTO from Polk would be great and no different than wealthy professionals commuting from hours away into Manhattan

Ridership for the southern expansion is greatly exceeding expectations. Projections were for an additional 1800 riders while ridership has been averaging 3000 additional riders all year. 6500 riders is not a lot in the grand scheme of things, but it's a good start. If it ever gets weekend, holiday, and more frequent service, and expanded to MCO and Deland, it will be a great asset to the region.

Change is good, if ya'll don't want development y'all shouldn't live in the fast growing metropolitian area in the country. Lake County is right around the corner if you want small town living. This isn't communist Russia, we live in a free market economy and I believe people should be allowed to live where ever they desire. Denying growth that the market demands is tantamount to communism in my opinion.

This is the Station ridership, Sanford is quite low, although Sanford is not nearly the destination of Winter Park, being directly downtown couldn’t hurt.

Yeah I don't understand why someone who is so anti-transit is on the SunRail board of commissioners. The economic activity increasing tax revenues will likely make up for any money spent on extending and operating the system. The Debary station has significant Transit Oriented Development planned around it I believe, I'm sure developers would love to build around the stations in Deland and Orange City if built. I wonder if they realize how much money I-4 and other roads lose; the belief that transit needs to pay for itself but roads do not is very short sighted and I hope they realize the error of their beliefs. SunRail isn't perfect and needs better service, but it's not going anywhere and Volusia county will miss a great opportunity if they don't extend it to Deland.